Changing Tides
by InferNafee
Summary: A selected group of demigods are propelled to the throne room of Olympus where they are stuck with the gods themselves. The only way out is to read a book. The selected group must read the books with the gods that was given to them to prevent a war that had the potential destroy the things they love. For only small decisions when piled up together have the potential of change.
1. 0

It was a bright day out in camp half blood. The campers were out training to the peak of their abilities. Some climbed shaking lava walls, some shot down targets at an impossible distance while some fought with spears, swords and axes. There were also children who tended to forges, making new weapons, some that tended to the gardens. There were even a group that just looked at themselves in the reflection of the water.

Out of nowhere, there was a bright burst of light and some people disappeared. The rest though looked like they were frozen in time. Even the tree at the hill looked somewhat less lively.

At a certain hotel in Las Vegas, young children were enjoying themselves. They played games and watched whatever they felt like watching. Slowly time came to a halt there too and with a flash of light two people were taken away.

In three other locations, such flashes appeared too. A total of eight people disappeared from those locations.

Up in Olympus, the gods sat in their respective thrones. There was a heated argument between the king of the gods and the god of the seas.

"Sea storms pale in comparison to the might of the sky storms!" Zeus boasted. He was the god of the skies after all. It was expected for him to be biased towards his own domain.

"Try saying that once you're out of your sky and in my water. I'll show you how mighty sea storms can be!" Poseidon said with a growl. Being the god of the sea, he took it as a personal offense when someone doubted the seas.

"It's like this every year. Can't someone stop them?" Artemis groaned form her place in the throne room. She'd much rather be with her hunters than listen to her father and uncle debate on the storms.

"Well maybe you should try it sister. Who knows? Maybe an arrow to the dick would silence them both" Apollo suggested to her twin.

"Or you would get blasted by lightning and sea water. Either way it's very entertaining for us" Hermes laughed from his throne. His laugh though was cut short when an arrow stabbed itself to his throne, a mere inches from his crotch. He looked at his half-sister, eyes wide in terror. Artemis had her aim fixed at him, though no arrows were put in to shoot this time.

"This is too boring" Aphrodite mumbled, her head resting against the palm of her hands. "Boring? How can you call this boring? This is great!" Ares said from his place beside her with a huge grin. Aphrodite merely rolled her eyes at her lover and looked to the ceiling. "I wish something interesting would happen" she mumbled.

As soon as she had uttered those words, twelve kids fell from the roof. They had appeared out of nowhere and proceeded to crash on the floor. The collective groan from them had grabbed the attention of the gods who ceased their personal musings and arguments.

The group of twelve slowly separated, one of them still on the ground. He had fallen first and the rest on top of him. "That was spectacular. Anyone else would like to join in?" the boy asked from his place on the ground with a groan.

As if some divine power had decided to grant him his wish, six more people fell from the roof and on top of him. "Well maybe a bag of a million dollars wouldn't be bad" one of the boys asked out loud. He got nothing in return. "Had to try" another boy, possibly his brother said to him encouragingly.

"What is going on here?!" Zeus shouted once the initial shock over came him. The kids all jumped a little and looked around to the king of the gods.

"He's huge" the boy who was on the ground a moment ago murmured. He was then pulled down to his knees by his friend as everyone bowed down.

"Lord Zeus. Why have you summoned us?" a blonde girl asked. Zeus looked at the girl in confusion hidden amongst his anger. "If I had summoned you I would not have asked!" the king growled out making the girl flinch.

Before the talks could go any further, there was another flash and a stack of books with a note on top appeared in the middle of the room.

Curious Athena stood up from her throne and walked over to the books. "There is a note" she declared and began to read.

" _ **Dear gods and collected demigods. I have brought you here in this room to read about the life of a certain demigod. His life revolves around an upcoming war that many of you are avoiding on thinking about. As long as they are here, they are under my protection so no one is to harm either of them. I'm talking to you Zeus. Keep it under control. While you all are here, time is frozen outside so don't worry about school or anything like that children. And as you finish this reading, three more are going to join you don't jump down their throats or anything. And children introduce yourselves. Name of parents and all. And to the gods. Claim your children already.**_ "

As soon as Athena finished, three more thrones rose. One was beside Poseidon's where Amphitrite appeared. The other two rose to the side, beside Demeter's. On them appeared Hades and Persephone, the rulers of the underworld.

None of them commented on that as the note had said though Zeus looked ticked off at being called out personally. "Why are we here?" Hades asked for himself and his wife while Poseidon filled in his wife. "To read some stupid books to stop some stupid war" Dionysus drawled sipping his can of coke.

"Anyways" Hestia said and turned to the gathered children. "Introduce yourselves" she said with a smile that seemed to warm up the whole room.

"Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena" said the blonde girl, much to the pride of her mother.

"Travis and Connor Stool, sons of Hermes" the twins said in unison making Hermes grin.

Katie Gardner, daughter of Demeter" Demeter smiled.

"Will Solace, son of Apollo" Apollo beamed brightly. Artemis had to smack him with her bow just to dim his light.

"Silena Beauregard, daughter of Aphrodite" said goddess smiled at her.

"Charles Beckendorf, son of Hephaestus" said god of the forges smiled at his son while tinkering with some scrap metal.

"Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares" the girl sneered and her father grinned.

"Percy Jackson" the boy from the floor muttered and instantly the symbol of Poseidon glowed over his head, much to the shock of everyone in the room.

"Poseidon!" Zeus roared and immediately was pulled back down by his wife. "Two" she hissed at him and Zeus backed down. His face though had a scowl.

"Grover Underwood, Satyr" the scowl on Zeus' face deepened.

"Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus" the punk looking girl said. Zeus' scowl immediately got replaced by a look of shock while Annabeth and Grover too looked just as shocked. "Thalia?" Annabeth asked shakily. "Hey Anny" the girl greeted and was immediately tackled into a hug. The two stayed like that for a while before they had parted, standing by one another.

"Right" Hestia cleared her throat and looked to the other group. "You may begin now" she said with a smile.

"Jason Grace, son of Jupiter" the blonde boy with the scar said. Thalia looked at the boy in shock while the form of Zeus shifted from his Greek face to his roman one for a moment.

There was a moment of shocked silence in the room before all hell broke loose. "A roman with the Greeks!" Apollo said dramatically.

This chaos went on for a good while before the room shook and they all quieted down. Another note fell from the ceiling and right into Athena's lap.

" _ **Oh stop panicking and just read the books! You'll know why they are here"**_ she read and the gods settled down. Though none of them looked comfortable in the least.

"Piper Mclean" the girl with brown hair introduced herself and immediately the symbol of Aphrodite appeared over her. Silena looked at her sister curiously.

"Leo Valdez" the elf looking boy said with a grin. Over him the symbol of Hephaestus shone brightly and Beckendorf turned to the boy. He too was curious about his half brother.

"Reina Ramirez, daughter of Bellona" the girl with the look of a warrior introduced herself. No one reacted to this, Bellona not being present there herself.

"Frank Zhang" the boy with the big build introduced him. Ares' form trickled for a moment and mars came out to claim his child.

"Hazel Lavesque, daughter of Pluto" the form of Hades shifted to Pluto for a moment and they both looked very confused at the girl.

"Bianca Di Angelo and my brother Nico Di Angelo" the girl introduced herself and her brother. The mark of Hades shone brightly over them.

Zeus wanted to protest against his older brother this time but the warning from Hera and the look Hades was giving him kept him at bay. This was not the best time to fight.

"Well that's everyone" Athena said and immediately picked up the first book. Many gods rolled their eyes, typical Athena and her thing for knowledge.

"Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief" she read the title and said boy just groaned. She looked at the sea spawn and scowled slightly before she calmed her features. She might hate his father but this boy has not done anything to her yet so she would reserve judgement for now, that was the wise decision after all.

" _ **I ACCIDENTALLY VAPORIZE MY PRE-ALGEBRA TEACHER"**_ she began with a raised eyebrow.


	2. 1

_**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**_

"Who does?" Thalia snorted. She was still sore about the whole dying thing. Beside her Annabeth nodded her head.

 _ **If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe what-ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**_

"That's a shit idea" Clarisse snorted. "The monsters would just find you because of your scent and you'll die with no training" Reina nodded her head in agreement to Clarisse's words.

"But the mist should hide you from monsters" Hazel said with a frown. "Not if your scent is a strong one. The mist would only obscure your sight them. The monsters wouldn't need to see you to know you're a demigod" Athena answered.

 _ **Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**_

"Check, check and check" Thalia mumbled under her breath. Annabeth looked at her friend with sad eyes and just hugged her tightly which Thalia didn't mind. Jason stared at her intently. There was something familiar about her.

 _ **If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**_

"It's good to know my thoughts are free for everyone to read" Percy grumbled out loud. "So you believe this?" Grover asked. He was sure Percy would have complained about how this was all a dream. "Hard not to when they are sitting right in front of you" Percy mumbled to his only friend. Grover's eyes widened slightly and he nodded. Of course he was looking at them right now.

Amphitrite watched the young boy closely. Usually she wouldn't give the time of her day to any demigod of her husband's. But she was brought here by a stronger force than the gods. Maybe this boy was different from all the others. She would get her answer soon she knew.

 _ **But if you recognize yourself in these pages, if you feel something stirring inside, stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you. Don't say I didn't warn you.**_

"Well you didn't warn us" the Stolls said unison making the daughter of Demeter sigh at their childish behavior.

 _ **My name is Percy Jackson.**_

"Hello Percy Jackson" Nico said with a big smile and waved at him. Percy smiled slightly and waved back.

 _ **I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. You could say that.**_

"Admitting is the first step to recovery" Hermes said wisely.

 _ **I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan twenty eight mental case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**_

The Romans perked up hearing the words. "Sounds interesting" Annabeth mumbled under her breath.

 _ **I know it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.**_

Annabeth glared at Percy. Percy just looked at her blankly.

 _ **But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes. Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**_

"And he sleeps in class too!" Annabeth muttered under her breath. "With the ADHD and Dyslexia its normal he wouldn't be paying attention" Thalia said in amusement. Guess little Anny hasn't changed a bit.

 _ **I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble. Boy, was I wrong. See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind- the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**_

"Nooooo tell us moooore!" Apollo and Hermes whined like children. They loved hearing the bad luck of this Percy Jackson. It was hilarious to them. Even Ares approved of the destruction this sea spawn was creating.

"Children" Artemis muttered shaking her head.

 _ **This trip, I was determined to be good.**_

"He just jinxed himself" Leo chuckled to himself.

 _ **All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**_

"One what a bitch. And two who eat peanut butter and ketchup sandwich!?" Thalia muttered in disgust. "Apparently this girl" Katie said making a disgusted face. Whether it was because of the food or the girl no one was certain.

 _ **Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**_

"Gee thanks for the flattering introduction" Grover muttered with a roll of his eyes. Percy just chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his head, stealing glances at Grover's legs. He still couldn't believe his best friend was a donkey waist down.

 _ **Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**_

"Well that's no fun" Apollo frowned. "We should go visit this headmaster after this is over" Hermes whispered to Apollo who nodded eagerly.

 _ **"I'm going to kill her" I mumbled. Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter. "**_

"IN your hair?" Piper raised an eyebrow and Grover blushed brightly.

 _ **He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. "That's it. " I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. "You're already on probation, " he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens. " Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**_

"Great" Grover mutter with a groan. He was hoping this case would go smoothly.

Poseidon too looked slightly worried about his son.

 _ **Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years. He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye. Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**_

"She sounds familiar" Persephone muttered to her husband. Hades frowned slightly in thought.

 _ **From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.**_

"Wouldn't that Nico, Bianca and Hazel be considered the devil spawn?" Silena asked curiously then yelped when Hades glared at her.

Persephone sighed and rubbed her husband's arm comfortingly. She hated it when people considered Hades to be the devil when he was probably the most just of the rulers.

Demeter watched her daughter with a frown. She still hated that Hades had taken her away from her home.

 _ **She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey, " real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**_

"Sounds horrible" Connor mumbled. Being a troublemaker himself, he knew exactly how those kinds of teachers were like.

 _ **One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real seri-ous, and said, "You're absolutely right. "**_

"You're going to blow your cover Grover" Dionysus said with a frown and the Satyr shrunk into himself. Percy frowned and patted his friend's shoulder gently.

 _ **Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?" It came out louder than I meant it to.**_

"of course it did" Beckendorf chuckled.

 _ **The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. "Mr. Jackson, " he said, "did you have a comment? My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir. " Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?" I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**_

"It had to be that one" Poseidon muttered miserably. His siblings too looked slightly green. Even Zeus who wasn't eaten but had seen the titan king throw up his siblings.

 _ **"Yes, " Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ... " "Well... " I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"**_

"God!?" Zeus roared. "Calm brother. I'm sure Chiron would correct him" Hestia said gently. Zeus sat down but still scowled at the illegal demigod.

 _ **"God?" Mr. Brunner asked. "Titan, " I corrected myself. "And ... He didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-" "Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**_

"Try being there. Ew they say" Demeter muttered under her breath with a scowl. Persephone looked at her mother with a raised eyebrow.

 _ **"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans, " I continued, "and the gods won. "**_

"Years of fighting summed up in a few sentences. I like this kid already" Hermes laughed. His laughs were cut short by an arrow mere inches below his dick.

 _ **Some snickers from the group. Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids. '" "And why, Mr. Jackson, " Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**_

"Busted" the Stolls said in a sing song voice.

 _ **"Busted, " Grover muttered.**_

"Oh no we thing like goats!" they said in horror. I don't want to eat enchiladas and tin foil all day!" Connor said dramatically. Grover gave both of the boys a sour look while Katie hti them both on the back of their heads.

 _ **"Shut up, " Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**_

"Or horse ears" Silena said knowingly.

"What?" Percy asked in confusion. "It'll be explained" the girl said with a smile.

 _ **I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir. " "I see. " Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach.**_

"Best childhood ever" Hades said sarcastically and rolled his eyes.

"I would have thought you loved that place. All dark and damp. Reminds you of the underworld" Demeter commented snidely. Hades just rolled his eyes, not giving her a reply.

 _ **The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**_

"Chiron has a weird definition of a happy note" Artemis muttered under her breath.

"Uh Grover why is everyone calling Mr. Brunner Chiron?" Percy asked. "It'll be explained I guess" Grover just shrugged making the boy sigh.

 _ **The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses. Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson. " I knew that was coming. I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?" Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**_

"They have" Hestia said with a nod.

 _ **"You must learn the answer to my question, " Mr. Brunner told me. "About the Titans?" "About real life. And how your studies apply to it. " "Oh. " "What you learn from me, " he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. " I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard. I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**_

"Okay that might be a bit too much" Apollo muttered. "That is not at all too much" Athena huffed. "Of course not brainiac" Apollo muttered to himself.

 _ **But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**_

"Probably has been" Annabeth nodded.

 _ **He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.**_

The gods all looked at Zeus curiously. "What's got your toga in a twist?" Hades asked and Zeus shrugged.

 _ **I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**_

"And what about you?" Hades turned to Poseidon. "Amphitrite kicked you out of bed?" he asked with a smirk.

Poseidon sputtered and gaped like a fish while Amphitrite just huffed at her husband.

Percy observed the god of the seas intently. "So he is my father" he thought.

 _ **Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**_

"Of course" Leo muttered. He hated people who played favorites.

 _ **Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere. "Detention?" Grover asked. "Nah, " I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean I'm not a genius. " Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**_

Grover blushed a bright pink while the others laughed at his expense.

 _ **I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.**_

"Momma's boy" Ares muttered. "What was that?" Aphrodite asked sweetly and Ares gulped. "Nothing dear" he said in a squeaky voice. His lover could be a very scary woman when angered.

 _ **She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**_

Hera smiled softly. Which was a record in itself because she never like demigods. But this one felt different. Maybe this could be her first favorite.

 _ **Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**_

Hephaestus, Beckendorf and Leo perked up at the mention of such a machine. "Hmm maybe I could do some modifications to it" the thought went through all three of their heads.

 _ **I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**_

"I really hate that bitch" Thalia growled in anger.

"I say we go visit her after all this is over" Travis said with an evil grin on his face. "Agreed" Connor said with an equally evil face.

"Sometimes you two creep the fuck out of me" Katie muttered.

 _ **"Oops. " She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray- painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**_

Aphrodite and Silena made a face at that description. "She couldn't be that bad looking" Piper asked. "No Percy is being modest here" Grover muttered and mother and daughters grimaced.

 _ **I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper. " But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**_

"Like father" Amphitrite muttered with a roll of her eyes. She didn't exactly mind that. It was after all this side of her husband, the willingness to protect his people and allies that made her love him so dearly. If this demigod was anything like that, she might actually start to like him.

 _ **I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!" Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us. Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**_

 _ **"-the water-"**_

 _ **"-like it grabbed her-"**_

"So it comes naturally to him" Poseidon mused. "Did it not come like that to your other children?" Persephone asked. "Not all my children got that ability. To manipulate the water like that. Only Triton can do that. My demigods usually are good at not drowning at sea and reading sea charts without a sea chart" he explained to her.

 _ **I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc. , etc. , Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"**_

 _ **"I know, " I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks. "**_

"Noooooo never guess your punishments!" Hermes groaned. Artemis shut him up with another arrow.

 _ **That wasn't the right thing to say. "Come with me, " Mrs. Dodds said. "Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her. " I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**_

"I was very surprised" Percy confirmed his own thoughts.

 _ **She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled. "I don't think so, Mr. Underwood, " she said.**_

 _ **"But-"**_

 _ **"You-will-stay-here. "**_

 _ **Grover looked at me desperately. "It's okay, man, " I told him. "Thanks for trying. "**_

 _ **"Honey, " Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now. "**_

 _ **Nancy Bobofit smirked. I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**_

"A kid like you has a stare like that? Must be a real wimp if anyone is scared of that" Clarisse snorted. Percy as a reply just treated her to that look. Clarisse would feel very embarrassed when she would admit that the stare scared the shit out of her.

 _ **Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on. How'd she get there so fast?**_

"Monster" Thalia said stiffly. Beside her Annabeth stiffened as well .Grover gave Percy a nervous look, like he was seeing him die in many different ways.

 _ **I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**_

"Not so sure about that" Annabeth muttered.

 _ **I wasn't so sure. I went after Mrs. Dodds. Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel. I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**_

"You wish" Ares snorted. If this was a monster, then there would be no shirt buying or anything.

 _ **But apparently that wasn't the plan. I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. Except for us, the gallery was empty.**_

The room got tensed all of a sudden. Everyone's full attention on the book now. Even Dionysus looked to be paying attention.

 _ **Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**_

 _ **"You've been giving us problems, honey, " she said.**_

 _ **I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am. "**_

 _ **She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?" The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**_

"Probably was" Hades commented off handedly.

 _ **She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me. I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am. "**_

 _ **Thunder shook the building.**_

They frowned at Zeus.

 _ **"We are not fools, Percy Jackson, " Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain. "**_

 _ **I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**_

"I like him more now" Hermes chuckled.

 _ **Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**_

Athena read that part with a scandalized look on her face. A look that was mirrored on her daughter's face as well.

 _ **"Well?" she demanded.**_

 _ **"Ma'am, I don't... "**_

 _ **"Your time is up, " she hissed.**_

 _ **Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**_

"A fury!?" roared Poseidon. Here was the thing about Poseidon's anger. He was a cool and calm customer normally, easy going, almost lazy. But when you go on his wrong side, he would explode like an underwater volcano.

And right now the target of that anger was directed towards the king of the dead. Hades gulped slightly and raised his hand sin surrender. "It's in the future brother. I have no idea why I sent Alecto out like that" he defended himself.

Poseidon had more to say to his older brother. But his wife had pulled him back down and was holding his hand firmly. If there was anyone that could calm him at a time like this, it was Amphitrite.

"If he gets hurt" he said dangerously, letting the threat hang.

 _ **Then things got even stranger. Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand. "What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**_

 _ **With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day. Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**_

"Pathetic" Ares thought. But even he knew that a demigod facing up against a monster for the first time with no prior training or experience was bound to freeze up. And the being a torturer of Hades was no help either.

 _ **She snarled, "Die, honey!" And she flew straight at me. Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**_

"That came to you naturally?" Reina asked incredulously. Percy as an answer merely shrugged. He didn't know how he could explain how his instincts worked.

 _ **The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss! Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me. I was alone.**_

"He killed a fury" Clarisse said in shock. "And that too in one slice" Will muttered. "With no damage" Silena said. "And this was his first time too" Beckendorf said. The camp members all turned to Percy slowly. Said boy fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat.

 _ **There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me. My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or some-thing.**_

"Magic mushrooms" Travis mused. "So many ideas" Connor mused. Katie quickly hit them both on the back of their heads. "No!" she said sternly with a glare.

 _ **Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside. It had started to rain. Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt. "**_

"Who?" Thalia asked in confusion.

 _ **I said, "Who?"**_

"You thnk like Percy" Connor snickered then yelped when a bolt of lightning hit his ass.

 _ **"Our teacher. Duh!" I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr.**_

"The mist!" Annabeth realized. "Right that" Thalia shook her head.

 _ **I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away. I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was. He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**_

"You're a bad liar" Hermes, Travis, Connor and Apollo said in unison. Grover groaned slightly, the tip of his ears bright from blushing.

 _ **"Not funny, man, " I told him. "This is serious. " Thunder boomed overhead.**_

"Dad agrees" Apollo nodded seriously.

 _ **I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him. He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson. " I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it. "Sir, " I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?" He stared at me blankly. "Who?" "The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher. " He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**_

"Now that's a lie!" Hermes exclaimed with a smile.

Athena rolled her eyes and passed it over to Persephone to read next.


	3. 2

"Before we begin!" Leo called out before Persephone could start. "Can we get something to sit on? My legs are killing me" he said. The other demigods nodded as well. Hestia hummed and couches appeared, the numbers exact to that of the demigods. They all sat down and Persephone began her reading.

 _ **THREE OLD LADIES KNIT THE SOCKS OF DEATH**_

"These names are ridiculous" Thalia muttered. "I think they are funny" Connor laughed.

"You have a weird mind Prissy" Clarisse sneered. "It's Percy" the boy corrected but got a shrug in reply.

 _ **I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty- four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr, a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**_

"Yeah that's got to be tough" Frank sympathized. Percy just smiled at the big guy. It was nice that people understood his problems.

 _ **Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho. It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**_

 _ **Almost.**_

"Bet you its Grover" Connor said with a smirk. "There is no betting. Of course its Grover" Travis rolled his eyes at his brother.

 _ **But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**_

"See!" the brothers said in unison making the Satyr blush bright pink.

"You really need to be taught how to lie better" Hermes said with a frown. If possible, Grover's blush intensified.

 _ **Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum. I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**_

"Yeah those are the worst" Thalia muttered. She could still remember the nightmares she had while on the run.

Annabeth nodded beside her, remembering her own nightmares.

 _ **The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**_

"Something big must have happened" Artemis said with a frown.

"Do you think they went ahead with practically proving which disaster was the better one?" Hermes asked Apollo who seemed to actually think on it.

 _ **I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**_

Athena winced with every word. How could someone be this bad?

 _ **Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**_

"It means old drunk" Annabeth explained with a snort.

"So like old Dionysus here" Apollo said and yelped when a grape vine whipped his ass.

 _ **The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. Fine, I told myself. Just fine. I was homesick. I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**_

Hestia smiled warmly at the boy. He was a good hero she could tell.

 _ **And yet... There were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**_

"I'm not gonna be there if you're not there" Grover said with a smile. "You're gonna leave school? Why?" Percy asked shocked. "I was there to keep an eye on you. If you're not there I don't need to be there" Grover explained. "You make me sound like a delinquent who needs to be kept in sight" Percy mumbled.

 _ **I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I stud-ied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**_

"Good good" Athena nodded. At least the sea spawn was doing something right.

 _ **The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one- eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**_

"Stupid dyslexia" half the demigods muttered.

 _ **I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book. I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**_

"Teacher's pet" Ares snorted. Athena glared at her brother for the comment. There was nothing wrong with trying to please your teacher.

 _ **I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... Worried about Percy, sir. " I froze. I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**_

"I would do that under the circumstances "Hermes nodded. "You'd do that regardless of the circumstances" Artemis rolled her eyes.

The demigods watched the gods interact in silence. It wasn't always that you'd get to see how the gods behaved with each other.

 _ **I inched closer. "... Alone this summer, " Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"**_

 _ **"We would only make matters worse by rushing him, " Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more. "**_

 _ **"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line- "**_

 _ **"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can. "**_

 _ **"Sir, he saw her... . "**_

 _ **"His imagination, " Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that. "**_

"He should have told him" Dionysus frowned. This is what gets demigods killed.

"My my Dionysus. I didn't know you cared" Aphrodite said with a smirk. But all she got as a reply was a snort and slurping noises.

 _ **"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again. " Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean. "**_

 _ **"You haven't failed, Grover, " Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"**_

"I sound like some monster with the way Chiron is describing me" Thalia scowled. Annabeth and Grover chuckled.

 _ **The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**_

"And he's going to get caught now" Conner groaned.

 _ **Mr. Brunner went silent. My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**_

"He got up" Demeter blinked. "Maybe he was ready to tell him the truth" Athena shrugged.

 _ **I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing, " he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice. "**_

"I wonder what happened" Leo mused.

"Maybe if we listen to what the book says, we'll find out" Persephone said with a scowl. She hated being interrupted.

 _ **"Mine neither, " Grover said. "But I could have sworn ... "**_

 _ **"Go back to the dorm, " Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow. "**_

 _ **"Don't remind me. "**_

 _ **The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office. I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**_

"Smart move to wait till the coast was clear" Reyna nodded. She always liked a warrior who was prepared for anything.

 _ **Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**_

 _ **"Hey, " he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**_

 _ **I didn't answer.**_ "Won't work.

 _ **"You look awful. " He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**_

 _ **"Just... Tired. "**_

 _ **I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**_

"Won't work. Satyr's can read your emotions" Athena explained.

"SO you knew what was going on my mind the?" Percy asked. "I didn't exactly. You were panicked slightly. I thought it was about the whole Mrs. Dodds thing" Grover shrugged,

 _ **I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing. But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger. The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**_

"Sitting in one place for three hours" the demigods muttered in horror. "It couldn't be that bad" Amphitrite muttered. "It's very bad" Hermes muttered. He knew what ADHD was like after all.

 _ **For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**_

 _ **"Percy, " he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... It's for the best. "**_

"Someone really needs to teach Chiron some tact" Hestia huffed. She loved the half man half horse but he was the most tactless of people she knew.

 _ **His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**_

"But was it sarcastic though?" Silena mused. Percy looked at the older girl in confusion.

"Maybe it wasn't" Piper hummed and Percy looked to her.

"Maybe she secretly likes you and just wanted your attention!" Aphrodite cooed and Percy turned to her with a look of horror.

Grover laughed out loud at the last words and patted Percy on the back. "That explains so much" he joked and in return received a scowl form Percy.

 _ **I mumbled, "Okay, sir. "**_

 _ **"I mean ... " Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time. "**_

The goddesses all sighed at that. Even Artemis felt slightly bad for the boy.

 _ **My eyes stung. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**_

 _ **"Right, " I said, trembling.**_

 _ **"No, no, " Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... You're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-"**_

"Wow" Apollo said summing up the thougthts of some of the gods in the room.

"He really needs to be taught tact" Piper muttered.

 _ **"Thanks, " I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.**_

 _ **"Percy-"**_

 _ **But I was already gone. On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**_

"As part of your family, we take offense to that" Travis said. Percy just looked at him, "I don't know any of you" he said simply.

"That can be changed" Conner said with a smile and slid in beside Percy. "Conner Stoll, son of Hermes" he said flirtatiously.

Katie sighed standing up. She walked over to Conner and pulled him back to his place by the back of his collar. "Sorry about him. He was dropped on his head as a child" she said to Percy and went back to her seat.

 _ **They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**_

 _ **"Oh, " one of the guys said. "That's cool. "**_

 _ **They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**_

"Rude" Hestia said with a frown.

"Children. That's how they all are Dionysus rolled his eyes.

 _ **The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**_

"Stalker" someone coughed out and the demigods chuckled.

"Am not!" Grover said forcefully, the tips of his ear going red.

 _ **During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**_

"Guess this is the future for us too" Percy looked at Grover who nodded.

 _ **Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**_

 _ **I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**_

 _ **Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"**_

"Oh way to make the goat shit himself" Travis barked out a laughter followed by the other demigods and a few gods.

Grover just gave Percy a sour look while he smiled sheepishly.

 _ **I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**_

"You had to confess" Hermes sighed in disappointment.

"Don't worry dad. We'll make a troublemaker out of him" Travis and Conner said in unison, puffing out their chest. Hermes looked at his sons with a smirk and pride in his eyes.

 _ **Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"**_

 _ **"Oh ... Not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**_

"We'd like to know that too" Clarisse said with a scowl. "I agree with the grumpy girl" Apollo nodded and Clarisse turned her scowl towards the sun god.

 _ **He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ... "**_

 _ **"Grover-"**_

 _ **"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ... "**_

 _ **"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar. "**_

"You really are" Percy, Annabeth, Thalia nodded in unison making Grover blush brighter. "What is this pick on Grover day" he muttered under his breath.

 _ **His ears turned pink. From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer. The card was in fancy script,**_

"Why is it like that?" Annabeth asked. None of the gods replied but Dionysus had a sly grin on his face.

 _ **which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**_

 _ **Grover Underwood**_

 _ **Keeper**_

 _ **Half-Blood Hill**_

 _ **Long Island, New York**_

 _ **(800) 009-0009**_

 _ **"What's Half-"**_

 _ **"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... Summer address. "**_

 _ **My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**_

 _ **"Okay, " I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion. "**_

"Less mansion more summer camp" Grover explained and the Greek demigods all nodded. Percy and those that haven't seen the camp were now very curious about it.

 _ **He nodded. "Or ... Or if you need me. "**_

 _ **"Why would I need you?"**_

"That was harsh" Hestia frowned at the young man.

Percy ducked his head and looked at Grover apologetically. Grover smiled back at him in an 'I forgive you' manner.

 _ **It came out harsher than I meant it to.**_

Hestia smiled warmly at the boy. He was better than most demigods already.

 _ **Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you. "**_

 _ **I stared at him. All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.**_

"When you put it like that" Grover rolled his eyes making his best friend chuckle.

 _ **"Grover, " I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"**_

 _ **There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**_

Aphrodite and her daughters made a face at the description.

 _ **The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway. After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**_

"Odd place to knit" Bianca frowned, tilting her head. Who knits under a maple tree in the harsh sun. Knitting is something people do inside their houses.

 _ **I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**_

It was Athena first who realized. After her Artemis and slowly everyone realized it. The demigods and Grover too looked very shocked while those that were still new to this world looked very confused.

"The fates?" Poseidon asked in barely a whisper. Of all the things his son could meet it had to be them.

 _ **All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**_

"Are they like Mrs. Dodds?" Percy asked Grover. "Way worse" he stuttered out, his whiskery chin wobbling at the mere thought of those three ancient beings.

 _ **The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**_

Grover mumbled something under his breath and did a clawing motion over his heart. Percy frowned at his friend. He was acting weird. But then again if they were worse than Mrs. Dodds. A shiver went down his spine.

 _ **I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**_

 _ **"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-"**_

 _ **"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**_

 _ **"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**_

 _ **"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all. "**_

"It isn't" said Hermes in the most serious voice anyone could ever think of was possible by the god of the thieves.

 _ **The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**_

The same intake of breaths was done by Grover in the room, Poseidon, Apollo, Hermes, Hestia and even Amphitrite. Persephone ignored their reactions and kept reading. She was sure that the fates hadn't come for the boy. Otherwise he wouldn't have five books to his name. And from the looks of things, Athena and Artemis came to the same conclusion.

 _ **"We're getting on the bus, " he told me. "Come on. "**_

 _ **"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there. "**_

 _ **"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**_

"Listen to him!" Annabeth screeched in worry. She was not sure where this worry was coming from. Maybe as a fellow demigod she was feeling sympathetic towards the sea spawn.

 _ **Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic.**_

Poseidon closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Amphitrite looked to her husband and took his hand in hers. She might not be overly fond of her husband's illegitimate children, but she knew he loved them all. And from the looks of things he favored this one the most. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze and he returned it with a squeeze of his own.

 _ **Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.**_

The Stolls would have made a joke here but the tense atmosphere in the room told them that if they did make on right now, they would get cursed, stabbed, beaten up from various directions.

 _ **At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**_

"Now it starts" Thalia growled. She might have not known Percy for long, but he was a nice kid from the looks of things. He treated Grover nicely and stood up for him. That put him in her good books.

 _ **The passengers cheered.**_

 _ **"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**_

 _ **Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**_

 _ **"Grover?"**_

 _ **"Yeah?"**_

 _ **"What are you not telling me?"**_

"So many things" Beckendorf muttered. He hated it when people held things from him or anyone who it may concern.

 _ **He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**_

 _ **"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**_

 _ **His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw. "**_

 _ **"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn. "**_

 _ **He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older.**_

"You're very observant" Athena said and the boy looked at her. "Must be a trait from your mother" she said with the slightest hint of a smile.

Poseidon rolled his eyes and scowled at the goddess of wisdom for her comment.

 _ **He said, "You saw her snip the cord. "**_

 _ **"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**_

 _ **"This is not happening, " Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time. "**_

 _ **"What last time?"**_

 _ **"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth. "**_

"It was not your fault Grover" Thalia said with force. "But I was supposed to protect you" Grover mumbled. "I chose to stand my ground to help my friends. And that includes you. My sacrifice or whatever you call it was my decision. You are not at fault for my death" Thalia explained but Grover still looked dejected.

Percy frowned listening to the words. He wanted to know what had happened. He also knew the reply he would get if asked. So he chose not to ask.

Zeus looked down at his child and the Satyr that failed him. He was very pissed at the Satyr for letting his daughter die. But Thalia's words seemed to put him in deep thought.

 _ **"Grover, " I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**_

 _ **"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me. "**_

 _ **This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**_

"He is so ditching him the moment he gets off the bus" Hermes whispered to Apollo who nodded. It was obvious the boy would do it with how the Satyr was acting around him. People would be stupid to bet against it.

 _ **"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**_

 _ **No answer.**_

 _ **"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**_

"You figured that out fast" Athena hummed. "Maybe you take more after your mother" she mused making Poseidon scowl at her.

 _ **He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**_

Persephone heaved a sigh as the chapter ended and passed the book to her mother to read next.


	4. 3

_**GROVER UNEXPECTEDLY LOSES HIS PANTS**_

Demeter blinked at the title of the chapter. "You have a weird mind kid" Ares snorted.

 _ **Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**_

"Called it!" Apollo grinned. "No I did!" Hermes complained. "No it was me!" Apollo argued.

"If you two don't shut it I will shoot you in the dick" Artemis growled. The two shut up instantly afterwards.

Grover gave Percy a light glare making Percy squirm n his seat.

 _ **I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**_

"To be fair, I would have done the same" Thalia said with a snort.

 _ **Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**_

"Well he knows you well" Jason commented.

"Of course I do. He's my best friend" Percy said and shared a smile with the Satyr.

 _ **"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First, " I told the driver. A word about my mother, before you meet her. Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her.**_

"What?" Zeus asked when the demigods looked to him joined by a few gods. "Your temper causes death" Hestia muttered and her brother just shrugged.

 _ **She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**_

"If she still wants to write, I can always bless her. Make is easier for her to achieve her dreams" Athena said.

Percy looked at the goddess of wisdom and nodded. "Please?" he asked. Athena smiled at the boy and nodded. She was pleasantly surprised at how much the boy cared about his mother.

 _ **The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad. I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.**_

"You went to visit him!" Zeus roared out at Poseidon. "The rule is to not interfere with their lives. Me visiting is not interfering with his life" Poseidon answered with a roll of his eyes.

Amphitrite looked at her husband and hummed to herself. This would explain why he was so happy that one day.

 _ **My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures. See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back. Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**_

"Clever use of words. A lie but not a lie as well" Artemis muttered. "I wonder how seaweed brain got her into bed" Athena muttered out loud making Poseidon groan.

 _ **She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**_

"From what we read? That woman has got to be the most patient woman out there" Piper commented. She liked Percy's mom already. She sounded nice.

 _ **Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk.**_

"I don't like him" Katie muttered, her eyes narrowing. Her sentiments were shared by the other women in the room.

 _ **When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**_

Aphrodite and her children looked green to the face.

 _ **Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... Well, when I came home is a good example. I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**_

"Pig" Artemis growled out.

"He really is" Percy nodded his head and the goddess looked at him with a frown. So far this boy was the complete opposite of what boys usually are, arrogant idiotic baboons.

 _ **Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home. "**_

 _ **"Where's my mom?"**_

 _ **"Working, " he said. "You got any cash?"**_

"He seriously asked you for money!?" Annabeth asked in shock.

"Yep" Percy said, finishing word with a popping sound.

 _ **That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months? Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**_

"Not even my blessings can fix this" Aphrodite said in disgust. And that sentence alone was enough to picture how disgusting this man was.

 _ **He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret. " Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**_

"He wouldn't dare!" Thalia growled.

"Oh he would" Percy said angrily.

The temperature drop in the room could be felt with ease. Poseidon looked about ready to destroy this mortal. A few of the other gods and demigods looked the same.

 _ **"I don't have any cash, " I told him.**_

 _ **He raised a greasy eyebrow. Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else. "You took a taxi from the bus station, " he said.**_

"I'm surprise he could do simple math like that" Will muttered.

"I'm surprised he just doesn't grunt and groan like a troll. Because that is what his description tells me" Nico said. The two boys looked at one another before they broke into a grin.

" _ **Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**_

"Yeah and that someone is you!" Hestia growled at the book. Her siblings and godly nieces and nephews looked at her in shock while Demeter shrunk slightly because she held the book and the glare was focused on it. None of them had seen Hestia this angry in their life.

 _ **Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here. "**_

"At least one of them has the brain to think" Athena rolled her eyes.

 _ **"Am I right?" Gabe repeated. Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels.**_

"But not the courage" Artemis scowled. She hated men in general but there was a special place in her angry heart for men who hurt children. The special place being that part of her heart that loved torturing those that deserved it.

 _ **The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**_

"And then we have these two! The walrus, the coward and the two fart machines. What a band" Persephone said, sarcasm dripping off every word.

Percy wanted to defend Eddie. But then again seeing the angry faces of the gods made him think otherwise.

 _ **"Fine, " I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose. "**_

 _ **"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**_

"His insults are terrible. Brain boy? Really?" Annabeth groaned.

"You expected anything different from someone named Ugliano?" Travis raised an eyebrow at the daughter of Athena.

"Brain boy sounds like a superhero name" Conner mused to himself.

 _ **I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**_

Aphrodite groaned pinching her nose. "I want to personally make that man suffer" she muttered. Ares and Artemis looked at the goddess of love and came to an unthinkable conclusion. They both agreed and wanted to join her. Well for Ares it was joining her in anything other than sex that surprised him.

 _ **I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**_

"Love the sarcasm" Hermes chuckled.

"Only way to insult Gabe without him knowing I was insulting him" Percy shrugged.

The room got silent again realizing just why Percy developed his sarcasm. It was a way to get back at Gabe without getting hit for it. Various gods and demigods growled out loud at that.

 _ **Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**_

Athena blinked and came to a shocking realization. "My respect for her just increasing with each sentence" she thought looking at Percy.

 _ **But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone- something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**_

 _ **Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**_

 _ **She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**_

Hera smiled a bit at this looked at the boy. He really loved his mother. She then looked at her children and thought about why they didn't feel the same way about her.

 _ **My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**_

"Very patient" Piper said. Silena and Katie nodded to her words.

 _ **"Oh, Percy. " She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**_

Ares looked at Percy and raised an eyebrow. "That's what you look after you've grown?" he asked.

Grover snorted and following him, the Greeks began to laugh making Percy blush as red as a tomato.

 _ **Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central.**_

Travis, Conner, Nico and Leo all drooled at the mention of such candy. "I'm hungry now" Nico pouted.

"After this chapter we can go and have something to eat" Hestia said with a smile.

"Aren't we trapped in here?" Dionysus asked. Hestia looked at her nephew and pointed to the corner of the room. There was a huge table there and on it was an assortment of all kinds of food.

"Well then" Dionysus muttered and sipped his coke.

 _ **She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples, " the way she always did when I came home. We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right? I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**_

"Then you should let her know that" Clarisse muttered. Surprised eyes turned to Clarisse who raised an eyebrow at them. "What? If you love your mom you should tell her" she said simply. It was after all something she would do.

 _ **From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?"**_

 _ **I gritted my teeth.**_

The same thing was done by Percy in the room.

 _ **My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**_

"Okay no more positive spinning for you. You become delusional" Thalia said to Percy. The boy just blinked at her then shrugged

 _ **Until that trip to the museum ...**_

 _ **"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**_

 _ **"No, Mom. "**_

 _ **I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**_

"It does sound stupid. But you should still tell her. She's your mother she won't judge you" Hera said. Hephaestus and Ares looked at each other, then at their mother. Where did that come from?

 _ **She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**_

 _ **"I have a surprise for you, " she said. "We're going to the beach. "**_

 _ **My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**_

Poseidon smiled slightly. His bad mood was passing slowly. Though he still wanted to gut that walrus alive.

 _ **"Three nights-same cabin. "**_

 _ **"When?"**_

 _ **She smiled. "As soon as I get changed. "**_

 _ **I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**_

And the bad mood was back. He growled dangerously under his breath.

 _ **Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**_

"I will kill that thing" Poseidon growled. Those that sat near him, namely Zeus and Hades scooted away slightly. They never heard their brother this angry before.

Amphitrite frowned at her husband. For him to be this angry, he had to really care about that mortal and his demigod. "End of the day he is still mine. No matter who he sleeps with" she thought.

 _ **I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**_

 _ **"I was on my way, honey, " she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip. "**_

 _ **Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**_

 _ **"I knew it, " I muttered. "He won't let us go. "**_

Poseidon growled again.

 _ **"Of course he will, " my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides, " she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works. "**_

"Bribery. He doesn't deserve it but nice" Hermes nodded licking his lips.

 _ **Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... It comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**_

"I am going to kill this man" Aphrodite growled dangerously. Ares blinked at his girlfriend and scooted away slightly. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

 _ **"Yes, honey, " my mother said.**_

 _ **"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back. "**_

 _ **"We'll be very careful. "**_

 _ **Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apolo-gizes for interrupting my poker game. "**_

 _ **Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**_

"ooooh do it!" Thalia, Clarisse, Leo, Nico and the Stolls cheered.

 _ **But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**_

 _ **"I'm sorry, " I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now. "**_

"He can't be that stupid!" Piper mumbled.

 _ **Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably try-ing to detect sarcasm in my statement. "Yeah, whatever, " he decided. He went back to his game.**_

"I stand corrected" Piper sighed. Jason looked at the girl and patted her on the back awkwardly. Piper looked up at him and their eyes met for a moment before they looked away.

 _ **"Thank you, Percy, " my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... Whatever you've forgot-ten to tell me, okay?"**_

 _ **For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air. But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken.**_

"No she probably knows" Grover nodded. "How can you be sure?" Percy asked. "She knew who your father was, she knew I was watching over you. She knew everything" the Satyr stated and Percy gaped at him.

 _ **She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip. An hour later we were ready to leave. Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car.**_

"No decency whatsoever" Aphrodite fumed.

 _ **He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his '78 Camaro-for the whole weekend. "Not a scratch on this car, brain boy, " he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch. "**_

"Like he'd be driving it" Annabeth rolled her eyes.

 _ **Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve.**_

"You two think alike" Thalia said, wagging her eyebrows. Annabeth blushed slightly and slapped the older girl on the arm.

 _ **But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me. Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe.**_

"It is that. But unless you have magic or you're a god, that won't do anything" Athena said.

 _ **The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.**_

All the gods were looking at Percy now, their eyes judging the boy. Percy for his part squirmed under their blank stares and narrowed eyed looks.

 _ **Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out. I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**_

"Nice exit" Hermes snickered with Apollo.

 _ **Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**_

Annabeth shuddered at the mention of spiders.

 _ **I loved the place. We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**_

Amphitrite blinked then frowned. So that's where they met.

 _ **As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**_

"So that's what attracted you" Amphitrite said evenly. Poseidon looked at his wife and took her hand in his. "She reminds me too much of you" he whispered. Amphitrite rolled her eyes but held on to his hand.

 _ **We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work. I guess I should explain the blue food.**_

"No but if you must" Thalia shrugged.

"I would actually like to know. Blue is Zeus' color" Annabeth said.

 _ **See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**_

"Yours isn't a stream Percy" Grover snorted. Percy frowned at his friend and flicked his forehead.

 _ **When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**_

"She will write it" Athena said, almost like she was promising it to Percy.

 _ **Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them. "He was kind, Percy, " she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes. "**_

"She is right. This one looks almost like you but younger" Hades commented.

Amphitrite looked at Percy closely. He did have the same shade of eyes. And the way his hair rested, it was exactly like her husband's. Now if he got all the good traits from him, then she might eventually become fond of him.

 _ **Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud. " I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**_

 _ **"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... When he left?"**_

 _ **She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin. "**_

 _ **"But... He knew me as a baby. "**_

 _ **"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born. "**_

 _ **I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... Something about my father. A warm glow. A smile. I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me. I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**_

"It's not stupid" Poseidon sighed.

"But what is stupid is the law to not be there for your children" Thalia added. "No listen! If you had the balls to go fuck some random woman and have a kid, the least you can do is check up on them. Not everyone gets a mom like Percy's!" she added scathingly when Zeus looked at her.

The king of the gods frowned at his daughter but said nothing. Hestia though was smiling slightly. Maybe now they would treat their children right.

 _ **"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**_

 _ **She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**_

 _ **"I don't know, honey. " Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something. "**_

 _ **"Because you don't want me around?"**_

"Dude!" Thalia exclaimed and slapped the boy on the arm. Percy rubbed his arm with a scowl.

 _ **I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**_

"At least you realized it" Thalia sighed. Percy's scowl deeped but he said nothing.

 _ **My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away. " Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said-that it was best for me to leave Yancy. "Because I'm not normal, " I said.**_

"With family like us? The abnormal is the normal" Apollo said with a flip of his hair. His twin though just rolled her eyes.

 _ **"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe. "**_

 _ **"Safe from what?"**_

 _ **She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**_

 _ **During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**_

"A Cyclops?" Amphitrite raised an eyebrow. "I can't keep an eye on him. But no one said anything about my other children doing it" Poseidon shrugged with a smirk.

A few of the demigods looked at Percy with jealousy in their eyes. He got the perfect package. A mom who understood and a dad who looked out for him.

 _ **Before that a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into.**_

"How did a snake even get there?" Aphrodite asked plainly. They all just shrugged, none of them had an answer to that.

"Maybe Hera sent it" Hephaestus commented off handedly. The queen scowled at her son, "I did that once! And not even to this kid" she rolled her eyes.

 _ **My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**_

"Herakles" Zeus muttered. This demigod was a powerful one if he managed to kill a predator with his bare hands. He has to keep an eye out for him.

 _ **In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move. I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**_

"Right because the potential doom that might follow you there isn't a big deal. As long as the trip is all ok its fine" Dionysus rolled his eyes and drank his coke.

"He's just a child who doesn't know what's happening" Hestia defended.

"He knows what he saw. The mist was failing around him. If he told her that his mother would have brought him to camp straight away. Where he could be safe. Not telling her endangered not only himself but those around him. Namely his mother" he finished harshly.

Percy flinched as the realization hit him. Hestia though did not look happy.

 _ **"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could, " my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it. "**_

 _ **"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**_

 _ **"Not a school, " she said softly. "A summer camp. "**_

 _ **My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born- talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**_

"It's hard to let your babies go" Demeter muttered. Persephone looked at her mother. She had heard her.

 _ **"I'm sorry, Percy, " she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good. "**_

 _ **"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ... "**_

"The best kind of camp" the Stolls said in unison.

 _ **She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expres-sion that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry. That night I had a vivid dream. It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful ani-mals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**_

"You two are fighting. Why are you two fighting?" Hades asked his brothers. They both shrugged. This was the future. How would they know?

 _ **The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**_

Now it was their turn to look at their brother. Hades merely rolled his eyes. Typical of them to assume a monstrous voice from underground would be him.

 _ **I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No! I woke with a start. Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**_

"This is bad" Hestia muttered. Never efore had any of her siblings fought like this.

 _ **With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane. " I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.**_

"Yeah how rude of it" Apollo said. Then a splash to the face and a yelp later he was asking for forgiveness from the lord of the ocean.

 _ **Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**_

"You have sharp ears" Annabeth complimented.

"I wonder if his ears are like horse ears. Poseidon being the father of horses and all" Hermes mused to Apollo who shrugged. He didn't want to say anything and get on the sea god's wrong side. He could be very scary sometimes.

 _ **Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... He wasn't exactly Grover.**_

"Ah you came without your pants on" Annabeth guessed. "That explains the chapter title" Reyna noded.

 _ **"Searching all night, " he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**_

 _ **My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**_

 _ **"Percy, " she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**_

 _ **I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**_

 _ **"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"**_

 _ **I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly.**_

"So you could already understand ancient Greek" Silena mused.

"Can't you all?" Percy asked.

"We can but we needed to be taught first" Beckendorf answered with a nod.

 _ **I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be ... Where his legs should be ...**_

 _ **My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"**_

 _ **I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning. She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!" Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**_

"Would you already stop describing my legs" Grover groaned. Percy chuckled lightly while Thalia and Annabeth snorted.

 _ **Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**_

"Right I'm done" Demeter threw the book at Hades. It hit him on the face before he could react. With a scowl he found the next page.


	5. 4

_**MY MOTHER TEACHES ME BULLFIGHTING**_

Hades sighed. The names were getting ridiculous now. But why would a bull be even mentioned?

 _ **We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**_

"You don't need to see to drive" Ares commented.

"Yes you do!" Hephaestus said with a groan. He was getting tired of doing all his repairs for him.

Ares rolled his eyes and waved his brother off.

 _ **Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag carpet pants.**_

"Is there even such a thing? Shag carpet pants?" Leo asked.

"Well they should be myths" Piper said pointing to the gods. "Maybe your shag carpet pants are real too" she shrugged making the son of Hephaestus snort.

 _ **But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**_

"Well you are a goat from the waist down and you're wet" Thalia commented. Which did no good to the goat boy who just got redder and redder.

 _ **All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... Know each other?"  
Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly, " he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you. "**_

 _ **"Watching me?"**_

 _ **"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend, " he added hastily. "I am your friend. "**_

 _ **"Urn ... What are you, exactly?"**_

 _ **"That doesn't matter right now. "**_

 _ **"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"**_

"Donkey!?" Grover made a sound like an angry goat and stomped on Percy's foot.

"What was that for!?" Percy groaned nursing his leg.

"For calling me a donkey!" Grover glared at him.

"I didn't even say it yet!" Percy shouted. But the goat boy just huffed.

 _ **Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"**_

 _ **I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**_

 _ **"Goat!" he cried.**_

 _ **"What?"**_

 _ **"I'm a goat from the waist down. "**_

 _ **"You just said it didn't matter. "**_

"Satyrs" Dionysus shook his head. Two things he could never understand. The mind of a Satyr and the mind of a woman.

The women in the room didn't know why but they had to glare at Dionysus for some reason.

 _ **"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"**_

 _ **"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**_

 _ **"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**_

 _ **"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**_

"This is so not the time to be talking about some Dodds" Poseidon rubbed his forehead.

"I don't know. This seems like the perfect time" Apollo piped up. One glare from the sea god and he was shrinking in his throne.

 _ **"Of course. "**_

 _ **"Then why-"**_

 _ **"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract, " Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious.**_

"Yeah should have explained it to him first goat boy" Thalia said with a chuckle.

Grover sighed. He was way too nervous about this in the future. Then again he knew what another failure would mean.

 _ **"We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are. "**_

 _ **"Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?"**_

 _ **The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**_

 _ **"Percy, " my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety. "**_

"Maybe explain to him while you drive? It's not like you are driving with your mouths" Dionysus grumbled.

"Multi-tasking is not as easy as it seems" Athena rolled her eyes.

"Grover was still there though. He could have told him" Apollo pointed out.

"The boy was too shaken up to say anything sensible" Artemis rolled her eyes.

"Then what's the point of sending out a Satyr if he can't even handle the pressure" Ares shrugged.

"Enough! We need to finish this" Hades said with a growl and the gods settled down. Grover though had shrunk into himself so much that he was disappearing. Percy rubbed the goat boy's back gently.

 _ **"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**_

 _ **"Oh, nobody much, " Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions. "**_

"Always me" Hades muttered. It was him who got the blame. Always him.

Persephone looked at her husband and patted his thigh comfortingly. She too was sick of the blame shift.

 _ **"Grover!"**_

 _ **"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**_

 _ **I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**_

"You never know what you're capable of till you try it" Hermes said wisely.

"No, I'm pretty sure I can't think up something like this even if I tried" Percy shrugged.

 _ **My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**_

 _ **"Where are we going?" I asked.**_

 _ **"The summer camp I told you about. " My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you. "**_

 _ **"The place you didn't want me to go. "**_

 _ **"Please, dear, " my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger. "**_

 _ **"Because some old ladies cut yarn. "**_

 _ **"Those weren't old ladies, " Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... When someone's about to die. "**_

"Grover!" Annabeth groaned.

"I panicked! Sorry!" Grover sighed.

 _ **"Whoa. You said 'you. '"**_

 _ **"No I didn't. I said 'someone. '"**_

 _ **"You meant 'you. ' As in me. "**_

 _ **"I meant you, like 'someone. ' Not you, you. "**_

 _ **"Boys!" my mom said.**_

 _ **She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**_

 _ **"What was that?" I asked.**_

 _ **"We're almost there, " my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please. "**_

 _ **I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive. Outside, nothing but rain and darkness the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.**_

"Yes. Was just as shocked as you when I met my first monster" Thalia nodded.

"What did you do then?" Percy asked.

"I don't remember. I think I got hit in the head or something" Thalia shrugged.

 _ **Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... And the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.**_

Poseidon gripped his throne tightly.

 _ **I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow. "**_

 _ **"Percy!" my mom shouted.**_

 _ **"I'm okay... . "**_

 _ **I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in. Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road.**_

"I really really hate you right now brother" Poseidon growled.

Zeus raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to probably rant out something. But it was Hestia who cut in and she sounded livid.

"How dare you do that to a child! DO you have nothing in that head of yours!? He could have died! A child could have died. You think you can make your kingdom follow your rules purely through doing whatever you wanted to them when you yourself hold no respect for these rules? Brother you remind me father and you should rethink about your choices and your actions before your children do what our father's children did to him!" she growled out each word.

Zeus was shocked to say the least. He was angry but the words had cut him deeper than anything purely because it was Hestia who was saying it. The quiet one who never raised her voice for anything. His older sister who supported him no matter what decision he took.

One look at her and a shiver ran down his spine. Hestia was stood up, her hair burning in a glorious blaze. The ends of her dress waving like the flames while her soft comforting amber eyes were burning bright with absolute hatred and fury. And just the look in her eyes made him flinch.

Receiving a nod from Zeus, Hestia sat back down and gave Hades a calm look, telling him to continue. Which he did.

 _ **Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**_

 _ **He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**_

 _ **Then he groaned "Food, " and I knew there was hope.**_

A few of the demigods chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't work.

 _ **"Percy, " my mother said, "we have to ... " Her voice faltered.**_

 _ **I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**_

 _ **I swallowed hard. "Who is-"**_

 _ **"Percy, " my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car. "**_

 _ **My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**_

 _ **"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**_

 _ **"What?"**_

 _ **Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**_

"Oh look it's me"" Thalia said. Annabeth frowned a little. She still hated the fact that Thalia died and became a tree.

 _ **"That's the property line, " my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door. "**_

 _ **"Mom, you're coming too. "**_

 _ **Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**_

 _ **"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover. "**_

 _ **"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**_

 _ **The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swing-ing at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... Was his head. And the points that looked like horns ...**_

Poseidon's and Hades' eyes widened. They both had realized who exactly that specific monster was. Poseidon turned to Hades who had already raised his hands up in surrender. "I have not the faintest idea of why that thing is out there. I would not send any after yours" he said honestly.

"You sent after mine" Zeus said with a slight edge in his voice.

"You know exactly why that happened brother. You know what you did for it to be that bad" Hades said coldly and a bead of sweat went down Zeus' neck. That fact was only known by him, Hades and possibly Persephone if Hades had told her.

 _ **"He doesn't want us, " my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line. "**_

 _ **"But... "**_

 _ **"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please. "**_

 _ **I got mad, then-mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**_

Athena sighed. She had guessed right from the first time when the boy had mentioned it. This was not going to end well.

 _ **I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom. "**_

 _ **"I told you-"**_

 _ **"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover. "**_

 _ **I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid. Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist high grass.**_

"That needs to be sorted out" Demeter frowned. She hated when the weeds over grew.

 _ **Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under-wear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms**_

"Wait what" Leo gaped.

"Fruit of the Looms?" Reyna mumbled.

"Man monsters are weird" Frank mumbled.

 _ **which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders. His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and- white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**_

"The Minotaur!?" Annabeth gasped.

"You sent the Minotaur at him!?" Hestia's rage was now turned to her other brother.

Hades shrunk slightly. "Sister you know I would not do anything like that without a good reason. I don't know it yet but something must have happened that made me do that" Hades defended himself.

Hestia's eyes narrowed. While she wanted to shout at him like she did with Zeus, she knew Hades had spoken the truth. Unlike her other brothers, Hades was calm and always thought things through. He would not do something this drastic unless provoked.

"A child Hades" Hestia hissed.

"I know sister" Hades ducked his head and began reading again.

 _ **I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**_

 _ **I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"**_

 _ **"Pasiphae's son, " my mother said.**_

"She must have been prepared" Amphitrite muttered. If there was one thing she could respect about this woman, it was that she made sure her child was safe. It was after all something that she herself would do for Triton.

 _ **"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you. "**_

 _ **"But he's the Min-"**_

 _ **"Don't say his name, " she warned. "Names have power. "**_

 _ **The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least. I glanced behind me again. The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling.**_

"Observant" Ares muttered impressed. "That would keep you alive in battle" he commented and immediately his looks changed to that of a disinterested person. And that meant htat he would be shrugging off any and all questions asked.

 _ **I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**_

 _ **"Food?" Grover moaned.**_

 _ **"Shhh, " I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**_

 _ **"His sight and hearing are terrible, " she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough. "**_

 _ **As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded. Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.**_

"Oops" Thalia shrugged. She didn't care what happened to the thing that belonged to some asshole who would hit a child.

 _ **Oops.**_

Thalia and Percy looked at each other and smiled.

 _ **"Percy, " my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**_

"She has really done her research" Amphitrite said quite impressed.

"Yeah" Poseidon mumbled. The main reason Sally had attracted him, was that she reminded him of Amphitrite too much. The way they both held themselves, the way their eyes changed colors, how they both smiled and the way they talked. It was way too much of a coincidence for him to ignore.

 _ **"How do you know all this?"**_

 _ **"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me. "**_

 _ **"Keeping me near you? But-"**_

 _ **Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill. He'd smelled us. The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us. My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said. " I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right it was our only chance.**_

"It is. Listen to her" Hestia insisted. She was feeling really worried for this demigod who she believes could mend the ways her siblings and godly nephews and nieces acted with their children on the mortal world. He was very important she knew. She could feel it.

 _ **I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**_

Aphrodite and Silena pulled a disgusted face.

 _ **He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest. The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side. The bull man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**_

"Oh no" Percy mumbled. A hollow feeling was growing in the pit of his stomach.

 _ **We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it. The bull man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**_

 _ **"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**_

 _ **But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**_

"No no no" Percy chanted in his head, eyes wide in fear as to what might happen to his mother. He cannot lose her. She was all he had.

 _ **"Mom!"**_

 _ **She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**_

 _ **Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... Gone.**_

There was absolute silence in the room. All eyes were on Percy who was bended over, eyes wide and looking at his feet.

"Percy-" Grover put a hand on his back. A hand of water erupted from the water fountain at the food corner and blasted Grover out of his seat.

The demigods were out of their seats and so were the gods. "Son" Poseidon said gently trying to approach his son. The water lashed out and whipped at the god's feet and he stopped.

"This is ridiculous" Zeus growled, the master bolt sparking to life. A wall of fire burst in front of him and he stumble back. His eyes went to Hestia whose glare was burning through him. "You will do no more damage!" she hissed.

Her eyes shifted to Percy and they softened. She could at some level relate to the boy. Her mother might not have died but she had disappeared. It had been a long time since she has last seen her and she missed her immensely. She was her home after all.

Her flames batted off the lashing out whips of water. Her eyes were trained on the boy who was on his knees, hands on his head, clutching his hair. She walked closer to him, his flames still protecting him. She knelt down to his level once she had gotten close to him, choosing to be in her adult form now. She wrapped her arms around the boy and pulled him into a warm hug, her flames become a comfortable warm.

"It'll be okay little hero" she whispered to the boy, running her fingers through his hair.

"My mom" he whispered. The voice broke her heart. It was like the boy had lost everything. And from what she heard from that book, she was everything he had.

"It has not happened yet" she whispered soothingly. "It won't happen this time. We'll be sure of it" she said comfortingly. The boy in her arms clung to her, sniffling miserably. The water building around fell lifelessly as Percy slumped in her arms.

"He over tasked himself" she mumbled and carried his over to her throne. She sat on the ground, at the foot of her throne and put Percy's head on her lap. "Continue Hades" she said sternly, still angry about the Minotaur.

Hades sighed as he resumed his seat with the other gods and the demigods too sat down.

 _ **"No!"**_

 _ **Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons. The bull man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too. I couldn't allow that.**_

Grover smiled slightly. Percy was a real friend of his.

Hestia too thought the same thing and was smiling warmly at the boy. This hero was different from the rest she could tell.

 _ **I stripped off my red rain jacket.**_

 _ **"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**_

"His insults need work" Apollo whispered to Hermes who nodded.

 _ **"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists. I had an idea a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**_

"So not going to happen like that" Thalia sighed. She faced way too many monsters to know that the same trick won't work twice on them.

 _ **But it didn't happen like that. The bull man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge. Time slowed down.**_

Zeus' eyes narrowed. That was a weird detail to keep.

 _ **My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**_

"And he has never been trained before?" Ares asked Grover who shook his head. "Kid's got talent" he said. He was very impressed with this sea spawn.

 _ **How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**_

Everyone winced at that as if they all felt the pain.

 _ **The bul-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils. The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward. Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off. "Food!" Grover moaned.**_

Grover groaned. He was so tempted to just sink into the couch at this point. He was supposed to be HIS protector! And here he was protecting HIM.

 _ **The bullman wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**_

"That won't work" Ares shook his head. He was just a kid. He couldn't have that much strength to stop a monster bare handed.

 _ **The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap!**_

"Apparently it does work" Hermes blinked in surprise. Ares stared at the passed out demigod in surprise. This was interesting.

Poseidon looked at his son with a proud smile. He knew Percy would be a strong one. He had seen it in his eyes.

 _ **The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**_

"Spoil of war" Artemis nodded. She too was interested in this demigod now. There was something different about him. Something that made him stand out from the other men.

 _ **The monster charged. Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage. The bull man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate- ot like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart. The monster was gone.**_

Athena frowned at that detail. Usually humans die and they leave a body. But if the boy's mother disappeared in a flash of light, she might not be dead at all.

 _ **The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm-house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover I wasn't going to let him go.**_

Grover wiped a tear that had escaped his eye. Thalia patted the goat boy on the back.

 _ **The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**_

Annabeth blinked. The only one she knew at camp with hair like that was her. She blushed deeply at that realization.

 _ **They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be. "**_

Aphrodite raised an eyebrow, a playful smiled on her lips.

 _ **"Silence, Annabeth, " the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside. "**_

"Right" Hades mumbled and passed the book to Amphitrite.


	6. 5

_**I PLAY PINOCHLE WITH A HORSE**_

 _ **I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**_

"A likely side effect from what had happened" Apollo nodded.

"Gee you don't say" Dionysus rolled his eyes.

 _ **I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoonfed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding.**_

"Ambrosia" Hermes said dreamily.

Hestia looked at her nephew and shook her head with a small smile.

 _ **The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**_

Aphrodite and Silena cooed making Annabeth blush as bright as a cherry.

"That is cute" Piper mumbled.

 _ **When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**_

"And the moment is gone" Piper groaned. Her mother and half-sister looked to agree with her sentiments.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. What else was she supposed to ask? It was a mystery after all!

 _ **I managed to croak, "What?"**_

 _ **She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**_

Athena frowned lightly. "Stolen?" she thought. The events so far kept replaying in her head. Her eyes widened. She knew why her father was so pissed now.

 _ **"I'm sorry, " I mumbled, "I don't... "**_

 _ **Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**_

"Well that should shut him up good" Thalia chuckled.

"The best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. You're doing it right dear" Aphrodite said with a bright smile. The demigod in question and her mother both groaned at this.

 _ **The next time I woke up, the girl was gone. A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes at least a dozen of them on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**_

"Argus" Hera said brightly. She always loved that creation of hers.

Ares leaned over to his brother. "She loves that abomination more than she loves us" he whispered.

Hephaestus rolled his eyes. "That's because unlike us he wouldn't go against her decisions" he muttered.

"Best mother ever" Ares mumbled with a snort and sat back down properly.

 _ **When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest.**_

"How does he even know what that feels like?" Conner asked in disgust.

"Must be a sea demigod thing" Travis shrugged.

Poseidon merely snorted hearing this. He wouldn't hurt a demigod for something that minor.

 _ **My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt. On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**_

 _ **"Careful, " a familiar voice said.**_

 _ **Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy. So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And ...**_

Hestia sighed and ran her fingers through the unconscious demigod's hair.

Amphitrite too felt slightly sad for the unfortunate child.

 _ **"You saved my life, " Grover said. "I... Well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this. "**_

 _ **Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap. Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**_

 _ **"The Minotaur, " I said.**_

 _ **"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**_

 _ **"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull. "**_

"Well at least he knows his monster" Katie said. She had this look on her face that the monster mentioned might just appear out of thin air.

"Yep but he needs to know when not to say the names. It's like Harry Potter all over again" Annabeth sighed.

 _ **Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**_

 _ **"My mom. Is she really ... "**_

 _ **He looked down.**_

 _ **I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**_

"What's that supposed to mean!" Thalia said. Her voice sounded like she was offended.

"What he means that his world shouldn't be this beautiful anymore. Not after what he lost" Annabeth explained. She remembered clearly what it was like when Thalia had died. She was family to her and losing her was one of the toughest things she had to face.

The expression on Thalia's face softened. She wrapped an arm around Annabeth and pulled her into a tight one armed hug.

Annabeth sighed and buried herself into her side.

 _ **My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**_

 _ **"I'm sorry, " Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world. "**_

"Not your fault" Percy groaned, waking up from his unconscious state.

Grover literally jumped out of his seat and ran towards his friend, kneeling down beside the hearth goddess.

"You okay man?" he asked.

"Just a bit light headed. And its not your fault" Percy said, the last part coming out much more gently.

Grover nodded slightly. He helped Percy to his feet who was thanking Hestia for her words and kindness before he took the boy back to his seat.

"He recovered fast" Poseidon mused to himself.

 _ **He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**_

 _ **"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**_

 _ **Thunder rolled across the clear sky. As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it. Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light. I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**_

"No way in hell is that happening" Thalia snarled. "You come live at camp. You are not to get back to that thing. No matter what happens" she said in an enraged motherly tone.

Percy looked at the girl and nodded with a soft smile. It was nice when other people cared. True that Grover and Mr. Brunner cared as well. But this was more like family. Then again she was family.

 _ **No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**_

"With a build like that? You'll hardly pass for a ten year old" Ares snorted.

Percy ducked his head with a groan. He wasn't that scrawny.

 _ **Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever-looked as if he expected to be hit.**_

 _ **I said, "It wasn't your fault. "**_

 _ **"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you. "**_

 _ **"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**_

 _ **"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was. "**_

 _ **"But why ... " I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**_

 _ **"Don't strain yourself, " Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips. I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies, my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting.**_

"That sounds delicious" Nico said with a smile on his face.

"They are" Percy nodded with a grin of his own. The kid was cute. Could brighten up the room with a smile like that.

 _ **Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**_

"They will" Percy muttered. This was the future so that meant he could prevent it. And he would go to any lengths to prevent it.

 _ **Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**_

 _ **"Was it good?" Grover asked.**_

 _ **I nodded.**_

 _ **"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**_

 _ **"Sorry, " I said. "I should've let you taste. "**_

"Oh no. You don't do that" Hermes wagged his index finger. 

"Why not?" Percy asked curiously.

"Grover will burn into ashes" Hestia answered with a smile.

Percy gulped and nodded his head. "Don't let goat boy drink cookie juice" he made a mental list.

 _ **His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... Wondered. "**_

 _ **"Chocolate-chip cookies, " I said. "My mom's. Home-made. "**_

 _ **He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**_

 _ **"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards. "**_

 _ **"That's good, " he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"**_

 _ **"What do you mean?"**_

 _ **He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting. "**_

 _ **The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse. My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**_

Ares grunted in appreciation. One does not simply leave his spoil of war behind.

 _ **As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath. We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture, an open air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena, except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**_

"Your horses have wings?" Percy asked in shock.

"They are called Pegasus and yes they do have wings" Annabeth nodded with a soft smile.

 _ **Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who spoon fed me popcorn flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them. The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger- pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step-father.**_

"You bet your ass I can" Dionysus said with a deep growl. He had this feeling he was not going to like this demigod. Then again he didn't like any of the demigods that weren't his.

 _ **"That's Mr. D, " Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron... . "**_

 _ **He pointed at the guy whose back was to me. First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**_

 _ **"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**_

 _ **The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.**_

"Well that's a waste of a good test" Athena frowned. What's the point of testing them if the test was easy to figure out?

"Well that would mean that the children who got everything right actually did study. Because they chose the right answer" Apollo pointed out.

"Well if they already know the answer is B, then they don't need to study" Artemis pointed out.

"When you put it like that" Apollo mumbled with a frown.

 _ **"Ah, good, Percy, " he said. "Now we have four for pinochle. "**_

 _ **He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you. "**_

"We don't expect it. But we do expect you to be a bit warmer in the welcome" Poseidon said icily.

"Me? Warm? Have you met me?" Dionysus asked with a raised eyebrow. With his lack of wine and over dose of soft drinks, he could care less about who he angered.

 _ **"Uh, thanks. " I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**_

Dionysus hummed. He knew what a jacked up adult could do. His followers were a good example of that.

And from the looks of things, Hestia and Artemis knew the same.

 _ **"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**_

 _ **She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now. "**_

 _ **Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron. "**_

 _ **She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.**_

The blush that grew on her face with the description immediately turned to anger. "What do you mean!?" he growled out.

Percy shrugged. How was he supposed to know what he was saying in the future?

"Annabeth let her read" Thalia sighed, holding back a fuming Annabeth.

 _ **They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**_

Annabeth calmed down at the explanation. He was right. A child of Athena always planned their next step. Even if it was not needed at that moment.

 _ **She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that.**_

"It's like expecting the underworld to be the brightest place in the whole world. Simply impossible" Travis snorted.

 _ **Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep. "**_

"Yep" Conner laughed with the other demigods while Percy was left to bury his face in his hands and groan his embarrassment away.

 _ **Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**_

 _ **"So, " I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**_

 _ **"Not Mr. Brunner, " the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron. "**_

 _ **"Okay. " Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... Does that stand for something?"**_

 _ **Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason. "**_

 _ **"Oh. Right. Sorry. "**_

 _ **"I must say, Percy, " Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time. "**_

"I told his the same thing! My Chiron does listen to me" Dionysus sipped his coke.

Poseidon rolled his eyes and concentrated on the voice of his wife. That was the perfect way to stay calm.

 _ **"House call?"**_

 _ **"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... Ah, take a leave of absence. "**_

"Chiron wouldn't. Would he?" Hermes asked.

"Kill someone to take their place? No he won't do that. He's not Zeus" Hades commented.

Zeus just grumbled to himself. It was logical to get rid of the threat permanently.

 _ **I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**_

 _ **"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**_

 _ **Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test. "**_

 _ **"Grover, " Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**_

 _ **"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**_

"He shouldn't be" Dionysus grumbled.

"So you agree you're pudgy!" Hermes grinned.

A vine grew out from behind the messenger god and shut his mouth up. Dionysus meanwhile sipped his coke in a wine glass comfortably.

 _ **"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**_

 _ **"I'm afraid not, " I said.**_

 _ **"I'm afraid not, sir, " he said.**_

 _ **"Sir, " I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**_

"Same here Percival. Same here" Dionysus scowled at the demigod.

Percy had the urge to correct this giant man child. But something at the back of his mind told him it would be futile.

 _ **"Well, " he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules. "**_

Dionysus nodded to his own words in agreement.

 _ **"I'm sure the boy can learn, " Chiron said.**_

 _ **"Please, " I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**_

"Someone should really tell the boy" Persephone muttered.

Hades turned to his wife and hid a groan. Persephone was starting to care for this demigod. Last time she did that, Hades had to pardon someone who wandered into his realm to free her.

 _ **Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question. "**_

 _ **The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile. Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.**_

 _ **"Percy, " he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**_

 _ **"She said ... " I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her. "**_

 _ **"Typical, " Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**_

 _ **"What?" I asked.**_

 _ **He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**_

"Aw you do care" Aphrodite cooed.

"Yup. I care as much as you care about Hephaestus" the wine god mumbled.

There was an awkward pause. Aphrodite looked to her husband while Hephaestus was handling his machineries, eyes fixed on them. They both let out a sigh at the same time.

 _ **"I'm afraid there's too much to tell, " Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient. "**_

"And no orientation film either. Someone is just setting this kid up for all sorts of confusion! Chiron needs to eat more cereal" Demeter frowned.

 _ **"Orientation film?" I asked.**_

 _ **"No, " Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"-he pointed to the horn in the shoe box-"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you call the Greek gods-are very much alive. "**_

 _ **I stared at the others around the table. I waited for somebody to yell, Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**_

"Honestly" Hera rubbed her forehead. Her husband had to have such difficult kids.

 _ **"Mr. D, " Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**_

 _ **"Eh? Oh, all right. "**_

 _ **Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**_

 _ **"Wait, " I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God. "**_

 _ **"Well, now, " Chiron said. "God-capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical. "**_

 _ **"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**_

 _ **"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter. "**_

"Smaller!?" Zeus rose.

"Sit down now Zeus!" Hestia hissed, her hair crackling like a log in fire.

Zeus immediately sat down.

 _ **"Smaller?"**_

 _ **"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class. "**_

 _ **"Zeus, " I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them. "**_

 _ **And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloud-less day.**_

 _ **"Young man, " said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you. "**_

"I'm surprised Di is the one explaining things to him. IN his own special way but explaining nonetheless" Apollo whispered to Hermes.

Hermes muttered incoherently, the vine still holding his mouth shut.

 _ **"But they're stories, " I said. "They're myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science. "**_

"Ah humans and their 'logical' train of thoughts" Ares sighed in glee.

"Why's he so happy?" Beckendorf asked Clarisse.

"Human logic to solve conflict is to make more conflict. It gives him more power" the daughter of war replied.

 _ **"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody-"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued.**_

 _ **"Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come sooo far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me. "**_

 _ **I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... He wasn't.**_

"You catch on fast boy" Dionysus said sipping his drink.

"Did he just compliment Percy!?" Conner gasped.

Katie sighed and slapped the boy on the back of his head. "Sarcasm!" she muttered to the boy.

 _ **It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**_

 _ **"Percy, " Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**_

 _ **I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**_

"Yeah not as good as it may sound" Apollo nodded.

 _ **"You mean, whether people believed in you or not, " I said.**_

"See cousin agrees with me!" the sun god exclaimed. Only to be shot on the leg by his twin.

 _ **"Exactly, " Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some-day people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**_

"That was unnecessary!" Hestia hissed.

"It got the point through" Zeus muttered.

Brother and sister shared a glaring glance before they both looked away.

 _ **My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods. "**_

 _ **"Oh, you'd better, " Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you. "**_

 _ **Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock. "**_

 _ **"A lucky thing, too, " Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe. '"**_

"Yeah that could put a damper on things" Leo agreed. He too would hate to work with people who don't believe in him.

 _ **He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine. My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**_

 _ **"Mr. D, " he warned, "your restrictions. "**_

 _ **Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**_

 _ **"Dear me. " He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**_

"Dionysus" Zeus said in warning.

The wine god rolled his eyes. "Take away my symbol of power, my wife and stick me in a place where I hate to be. It almost sounds like you want me to die" the wine god said acidly.

A pregnant pause. "You wouldn't die there" Hermes said in an uncertain tone. The vine had disappeared from around his mouth.

"Tell me what happened to Pan when the wild places were taken away from him" Dionysus challenged.

None of the gods spoke. Zeus for the first time looked like he was contemplating his own decision.

"we'll talk about this later" he finally said and the reading continued.

 _ **More thunder. Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game. Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits. "**_

"Do tell father why I was banned" Dionysus said. He was on a roll now.

Zeus did not look at his son, choosing to look at the bolt in his hand.

 _ **"A wood nymph, " I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**_

 _ **"Yes, " Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence, ' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down. ' Ha. ' Absolutely unfair. "**_

"To the demigods. I mean seriously brother! Why would you send Dionysus there? It's like you asking Hades to rule of Olympus" Poseidon said with a smirk. He was enjoying pointing out all the flaws in his brother's decisions.

Zeus still did not meet their eyes.

 _ **Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**_

 _ **"And ... " I stammered, "your father is ... "**_

 _ **"Di immortales, Chiron, " Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course. "**_

 _ **I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**_

 _ **"You're Dionysus, " I said. "The god of wine. "**_

"Ding! We have a winner! I'd offer you wine kid but someone has ordered that I, the god of wine, am not allowed to make wine" Dionysus said.

Percy pursed his lips. He was seeing the child in Dionysus but he also saw the logic in his tantrums. It was like Zeus was sending Dionysus to battle with a water gun because the god had taken away one bullet too many from the armory.

 _ **Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**_

 _ **"Y-yes, Mr. D. "**_

 _ **"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**_

 _ **"You're a god. "**_

 _ **"Yes, child. "**_

 _ **"A god. You. "**_

"You doubt?" Dionysus raised an eyebrow.

"No. I mean look at you. You're huge and everything" Percy defended weakly.

The god of wine snorted at the weak defense.

 _ **He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**_

"Yep he could do that" Hazel nodded.

"But he won't" Poseidon said with an extra pressure to his voice.

Dionysus just d=shrugged. "The kid doesn't get on my bad side and I'll not do it" he said simply.

 _ **"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**_

 _ **"No. No, sir. "**_

 _ **The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win. "**_

 _ **"Not quite, Mr. D, " Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me. "**_

 _ **I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher.**_

"Chiron beat you?" Apollo asked in shock.

Dionysus nodded with a scowl.

"We have so got to ask him for tips" Hermes muttered.

 _ **He got up, and Grover rose, too.**_

 _ **"I'm tired, " Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment. "**_

 _ **Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir. "**_

 _ **Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners. "**_

 _ **He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**_

 _ **"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**_

 _ **Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... Ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**_

"The mortal world sucks" the wine god muttered.

 _ **"Mount Olympus, " I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**_

 _ **"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do. "**_

 _ **"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... In America?"**_

 _ **"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West. "**_

 _ **"The what?"**_

 _ **"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization. ' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps-Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods. "**_

"Ugh wasn't that a phase" Apollo muttered.

"You didn't even change!" Aphrodite complained.

The romans just looked at them blankly.

 _ **"And then they died. "**_

 _ **"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not-and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here. "**_

"That was a nice speech" Athena nodded in appreciation.

"I wonder how Prometheus is doing these days" Hermes mused. He was one of the gods who were against the punishing of Prometheus for giving fire to mankind.

 _ **It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.**_

"Welcome to club Half Blood! We have Ambrosia and Nectar here" Travis said in a welcoming waiter voice. Only to get smacked by Katie.

 _ **"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... Who am I?"**_

"Yer a demigod Percy!" Annabeth said mimicking a gruff deep voice.

 _ **Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**_

 _ **"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate. "**_

 _ **And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**_

"Surprised us too with that one" The Stolls nodded in unison.

 _ **"What a relief, " the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**_

Amphitrite finished with a sigh. It was nice to finally be able to finish. She passed the book to her husband.

Poseidon cleared his throat and started.


	7. 6

_**I BECOME SUPREME LORD OF THE BATHROOM**_

"Does he take like a huge dumb or something?" Conner asked his brother.

"Maybe he got bathroom privileges we don't" Travis shrugged.

"Shut up" Katie groaned rubbing her face. Her hands were already aching from hitting the two.

 _ **Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.**_

Apollo and Hermes giggled like little girls at that making the rest roll their eyes at them.

 _ **We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's him. " Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.**_

"Well the whole camp knows by now of what you did. They're probably expecting you to show off" Bianca shrugged.

"Too bad for them cause Percy doesn't show off" Grover said with a grin at his best friend.

 _ **I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized-four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**_

"My oracle" Apollo said with a sigh. He was still very confused as to why she couldn't change vessels. The poor thing was reduced to a pile of old bones held by ancient magic.

 _ **"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.**_

 _ **He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic. "**_

 _ **"Somebody lives there?"**_

 _ **"No, " he said with finality. "Not a single living thing. "**_

"Chiron is good at this whole lying thing" Hermes mumbled.

"Technically he was telling the truth. The oracle isn't exactly alive" Artemis added and the frown on Apollo's face deepened.

 _ **I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.**_

 _ **"Come along, Percy, " Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see. "**_

 _ **We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.**_

Demeter sighed happily. She loved a good harvest.

 _ **Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses, " he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort. "**_

 _ **He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.**_

"You're even hampering the camps!" Dionysus grumbled.

Zeus rolled his eyes at his son.

 _ **I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.**_

"I'm still learning" Grover mumbled.

"You'll get it soon" Thalia said with an encouraging smile.

 _ **I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.**_

 _ **"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... He was a good protector. Really. "**_

 _ **Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable.**_

Grover sank into his chair slightly.

 _ **To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill. "**_

 _ **"But he did that!"**_

 _ **"I might agree with you, " Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... Ah ... Fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part. "**_

Grover sank even deeper into his chair.

"It wasn't your fault G man. The idiotic bull was not something you could have seen coming" Percy tried to cheer him up. It didn't work.

 _ **I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**_

 _ **"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"**_

 _ **Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age... . "**_

 _ **"How old is he?"**_

 _ **"Oh, twenty-eight. "**_

"That's small for his age!?" Leo, Jason, Piper, Frank, Hazel and Percy said at the same time and looked at each other blankly.

"Satyr's age differently" Athena answered them.

 _ **"What! And he's in sixth grade?"**_

 _ **"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years. "**_

 _ **"That's horrible. "**_

"I agree with Percy. Must suck being a middle school student for six whole years" Leo nodded,

"It does" Grover mumbled.

 _ **"Quite, " Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career... . "**_

 _ **"That's not fair, " I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"**_

 _ **Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**_

"He should have told you" Thalia stated.

"Thalia I'm sure Chiron is just tryinf to ease Percy into it" Annabeth said logically.

"Ease or not he has the right to know. He has a lot of questions and not many are being answered" Thalia scowled She hated when that happened. Especially if ti was her.

Percy looked at the older girl and tilted his head in thought.

 _ **But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word death. The beginnings of an idea-a tiny, hopeful fire-started forming in my mind.**_

 _ **"Chiron, " I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ... "**_

 _ **"Yes, child?"**_

 _ **"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"**_

"Here we go again" Hades groaned. He was tired of demigods just waltzing into his domain before their time.

 _ **Chiron's expression darkened.**_

 _ **"Yes, child. " He paused, as if choosing his words care-fully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... Until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind. "**_

 _ **"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"**_

"Catching on" Ares smirked.

"He is so getting himself killed before his time" Aphrodite muttered then cringed at the look Poseidon was giving her. He had overheard her.

 _ **"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods. "**_

 _ **As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.**_

 _ **Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed. "**_

 _ **"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"**_

 _ **"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"**_

"How will he have those!?" Reyna asked incredulously. This Chiron sounded like a scatter brain at times then one of the wisest alive other times.

"Magic?" Leo asked lamely then cringed at the glare Reyna was giving him.

 _ **"My own-?"**_

 _ **"No, " Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later. "**_

 _ **I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much),**_

"I can imagine why" Hermes snickered.

 _ **the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**_

 _ **"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.**_

 _ **"Cabin challenges and all that, " he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall. "**_

"Usually?" Percy asked in a squeaky voice.

"Eh we have injuries from time to time" Clarisse shrugged.

 _ **Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.**_

 _ **"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.**_

 _ **Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**_

"So should have shown him the video" Dionysus shook his head. What he hated more than campers were campers that didn't know anything.

 _ **Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**_

 _ **Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.**_

Patrons of the mention cabins grinned proudly. Apollo though had to close his mouth instantly because his sister was pointing her arrow at a very dangerous place.

 _ **They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed). In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.**_

"He noticed me?" Hestia asked in confusion. It was rare for demigods to notice her. Not rare, it was almost unheard off.

"Is that a bad thing?" Percy asked the goddess.

Hestia shook herself out of her shock and shook her head again. "No it's just rare" she smiled warmly at him.

 _ **The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**_

Zeus and Hera smiled at the mention of their cabins.

 _ **"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**_

 _ **"Correct, " Chiron said.**_

 _ **"Their cabins look empty. "**_

 _ **"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two. "**_

"As it should be" Hera scowled at her husband.

Zeus though was busy polishing his lightning bolt with his toga, whistling without a care in the world.

 _ **Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?**_

"First time anyone called us mascots" Hermes muttered.

"Doesn't sound that bad to be honest" Apollo mumbled.

"Yeah because you're already a clown. Us? We don't like to be associated to one" Ares snorted.

 _ **I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three. It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor.**_

"He felt the pull" Amphitrite muttered. She didn't know why but a smile had made its way to her lips realizing that the boy was finally home.

 _ **I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"**_

"Why not? It's not like he would kill the boy for it" Amphitrite frowned.

"Chiron doesn't want to take any chances" Annabeth defended the activities director.

 _ **Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy. "**_

Poseidon frowned as he read. Percy would not like it in their then.

 _ **Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers. Number five was bright red-a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me.**_

Ares grinned at the mention of his cabin.

 _ **Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**_

"I take offense to that!" Clarisse complained.

Percy turned to the demigod and tilted his head. True there were some similarities between them but it was rude to point it out. "Sorry I guess" he apologized.

 _ **I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs, " I observed.**_

 _ **"No, " said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here. "**_

"Yay for the party ponies!" Apollo cheered and high fived Ares who was grinning. Say what you want but the god of war loved a mean party.

 _ **"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ... "**_

 _ **He smiled down at me. "The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am. "**_

 _ **"But, shouldn't you be dead?"**_

"Percy! You can't just ask people whether they should be dead or not! That one is purely saved for your enemies" Hermes advised with a grin.

Percy looked at the god and could do nothing but nod. Some of these guys were just plain loose in the head.

 _ **Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... And I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed. "**_

"He'll always be needed" Annabeth said with a smiled.

Leo though had a frown on his face.

 _ **I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.**_

 _ **"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**_

 _ **"No, no, " he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring. "**_

 _ **"Why depressing?"**_

"Because he had to see the people he love die in front of him" Leo said with a sigh. It was just like his mom. He had to see her being taken away, though he hadn't had to see her die luckily.

Jason looked at the boy with a small frown and rubbed his back gently.

 _ **Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.**_

 _ **"Oh, look, " he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us. "**_

 _ **The blond girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven. When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.**_

"Probably" Thalia nodded.

 _ **I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**_

"It probably is one" SIlena said.

"Annabeth loves architecture" Beckedorf explained.

 _ **"Annabeth, " Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"**_

 _ **"Yes, sir. "**_

 _ **"Cabin eleven, " Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home. "**_

 _ **Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a reg-ular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ? A caduceus.**_

Hermes grinned at the mention of his cabin.

 _ **Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.**_

The grin instantly fell. "You all are so bad at claiming your children! Just claim them will you! Otherwise that might come to bite you in the ass!" the god groaned.

The demigods looked at the gods. They looked to be genuinely considering this.

 _ **Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.**_

 _ **"Well, then, " Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner. "**_

 _ **He galloped away toward the archery range.**_

 _ **I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.**_

 _ **"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on. "**_

 _ **So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**_

Unlike in the books, the demigods were laughing at the unfortunate son of Poseidon. Even the gods looked slightly amused.

 _ **Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven.**_

 _ **"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.**_

 _ **I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined. "**_

The demigods sighed. They hated seeing the faces of their fellow campers who were yet to be claimed. The look of depression and the feeling of not being accepted by their parents was not something anyone was fond of.

Hermes and Hestia were glaring the gods who seemed to shrink slightly.

 _ **A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there. "**_

 _ **The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.**_

Hermes smiled at the description of his son. He wouldn't say it out loud but Luke was his favourite.

 _ **"This is Luke, " Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing.**_

Thalia punched Annabeth on the shoulder lightly with a grin.

"Shut it" Annabeth grumbled rubbing her arm. She too was blushing like her counterpart in the books.

 _ **She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now. "**_

 _ **"For now?" I asked.**_

 _ **"You're undetermined, " Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers. "**_

 _ **I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.**_

"Aw man" Hermes pouted. He loved it when his children stole stuff.

 _ **I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.**_

 _ **"How long will I be here?" I asked.**_

 _ **"Good question, " Luke said. "Until you're determined. "**_

 _ **"How long will that take?"**_

 _ **The campers all laughed.**_

The gods sighed as Hermes and Hestia glared at them again.

 _ **"Come on, " Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court. "**_

 _ **"I've already seen it. "**_

 _ **"Come on. " She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me. When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that. "**_

 _ **"What?"**_

 _ **She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one. "**_

 _ **"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy-"**_

"Some bull guy" Apollo snorted.

 _ **"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"**_

 _ **"To get killed?"**_

 _ **"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"**_

"To survive?" Athena raised an eyebrow at her daughter.

Annabeth felt too embarrassed to talk.

 _ **I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories ... "**_

 _ **"Yes. "**_

 _ **"Then there's only one. "**_

 _ **"Yes. "**_

 _ **"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ... "**_

"I didn't know gajilion was a thing" Hermes muttered.

"Because it isn't" Artemis rolled her eyes. Trust a boy t come up with stupid words.

 _ **"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die. "**_

"That really clears things up" Leo muttered.

 _ **"Oh, thanks. That clears it up. "**_

"Hey we think alike" Leo high fived a very confused but grinning Percy.

 _ **"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form. "**_

 _ **I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword-"**_

 _ **"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad. "**_

 _ **"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"**_

 _ **"You talk in your sleep. "**_

"Of course I do" Percy groaned.

 _ **"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"**_

 _ **Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her. "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all. "**_

"Hades' torturers are called kindly ones? Who names these things!?" Leo asked incredulously.

 _ **"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care.**_

"I hate it when that happens" Ares muttered.

"The thundering?" Aphrodite asked.

"The whining" Ares answered and was rewarded with a heel to his forehead.

 _ **"Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there. "**_

 _ **I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... Your parent. "**_

 _ **She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.**_

 _ **"My mom is Sally Jackson, " I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to. "**_

 _ **"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad. "**_

 _ **"He's dead. I never knew him. "**_

"Never knew him? Yeah probably. Dead? Not so much" Conner said in a creepy rumplestiltskin like voice that creeped everyone out.

 _ **Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids. "Your father's not dead, Percy. "**_

 _ **"How can you say that? You know him?"**_

 _ **"No, of course not. "**_

 _ **"Then how can you say-"**_

 _ **"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us. "**_

 _ **"You don't know anything about me. "**_

 _ **"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them. "**_

 _ **"How-"**_

 _ **"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too. "**_

"Anny that's creepy" Thalia muttered and received a slap on the arm for it.

 _ **I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"**_

 _ **"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD-you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle-field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are. "**_

 _ **"You sound like ... You went through the same thing?"**_

"I keep forgetting that Annabeth has the same problems as us" Silena muttered to Beckendorf.

"Yeah. With how much she reads its easy to forget" Beckendorf nodded.

 _ **"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar. "**_

 _ **"Ambrosia and nectar. "**_

 _ **"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half- blood. "**_

 _ **A half-blood.**_

 _ **I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.**_

"The beginning sounds like a good place" Will nodded.

 _ **Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"**_

 _ **I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us.**_

Clarisse threw a glare at Percy.

Percy shrugged apologetically. "Sorry?" he asked lamely.

Clarisse huffed and looked away.

 _ **She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.**_

 _ **"Clarisse, " Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"**_

 _ **"Sure, Miss Princess, " the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night. "**_

 _ **''Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which I somehow under-stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.**_

"It does" Hestia said and looked at Annabeth with a motherly glare.

Annabeth shrunk slightly, looking like a kid caught stealing a cookie from the tray.

 _ **"You don't stand a chance. "**_

 _ **"We'll pulverize you, " Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat.**_

"Stupid observant runt" Clarisse muttered to herself.

 _ **She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"**_

 _ **"Percy Jackson, " Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares. "**_

 _ **I blinked. "Like ... The war god?"**_

 _ **Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"**_

 _ **"No, " I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell. "**_

"That was a good one" Ares laughed.

"He also means that you stink kinda" Aphrodite pointed out making a face.

"Babe I'm the god of war! I shouldn't smell good. I should smell like war" the god of war grinned.

Clarisse looked at her father in surprise. She was way to stunned to attack Percy for the insult.

 _ **Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy. "**_

 _ **"Percy. "**_

 _ **"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you. "**_

 _ **"Clarisse-" Annabeth tried to say.**_

 _ **"Stay out of it, wise girl. "**_

 _ **Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep. I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom. I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking-as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out-that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.**_

"Oh they were classy. Put a hundred kids in one place and see how classy things turn out" Dionysus scowled. He loved those bathrooms.

 _ **Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.**_

 _ **"Like he's 'Big Three' material, " Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking. "**_

 _ **Her friends snickered.**_

Clarisse scowled at the boy but her lips would twitch at times.

 _ **Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers. Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't. Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.**_

Amphitrite smirked seeing her husband grin like a mad man.

Sea gods and their water bending obsessions am I right?

 _ **I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.**_

The twitching stopped and Clarisse looked down right murderous.

 _ **I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hit-ting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall. She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away. As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started. The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.**_

The Annabeth in the room though looked angrily at Percy who was keeping his eyes away from Clarisse and Annabeth.

 _ **I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.**_

 _ **I stood up, my legs shaky.**_

 _ **Annabeth said, "How did you ... "**_

 _ **"I don't know. "**_

 _ **We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead. " I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth. "**_

"Good one!" Travis roared with laughter, no longer being able to hold it back.

The gods too looked amused. In case of Hermes and Apollo though, they had disappeared under their thrones, rolling and laughing their asses off.

 _ **Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.**_

Katie and Silena had to hold down Clarisse as she struggled to strangle Percy.

"Clarisse sit down" Hestia said calmly.

Clarisse looked at the goddess and slowly sat down.

Hestia turned to Percy and motioned to Clarisse. Percy sighed and looked at the girl. "Sorry about blasting you with toilet water" he muttered.

Clarisse gritted her teeth but one look from Hestia and she slumped. "Fine. I'm sorry too. For trying to dunk your head in" she grumbled.

Hestia leaned back in her chair and sighed. These kids were just as a bad as their parents.

 _ **Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.**_

"Probably both" Thalia snickered.

Annabeth kept her glare at Percy. Though she did turn it on Thalia for a moment.

 _ **"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"**_

 _ **"I'm thinking, " she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag. "**_

Poseidon sighed and passed the book to Hera. His son a strong demigod. And that meant he would attract monsters. Something he was not looking forward to.


	8. 7

_**MY DINNER GOES UP IN SMOKE**_

"The names just keep getting ridiculous" Hera muttered to herself. It was bad enough that she was reading about a demigod, even if this demigod seemed not as bad as the others, the titles looked like Hermes had written them.

Said god sneezed and looked around. Guess someone was remembering him.

 _ **Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.**_

Said girl threw a glare at the son Poseidon. Said son of Poseidon threw back an apologetic smile.

 _ **She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords),**_

"That would be us. We make the weapons for the camp" Beckendorf said to those that didn't know. But his eyes were on his brother specifically, he had to know what role his half siblings played.

 _ **the arts- and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man),**_

"Pan" Hermes said with a smile, his tone laced with sadness. No one knew what had happened to his son and that was killing him.

 _ **and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.**_

"No one ever died from that" Grover said quickly as his eyes fell on Percy, who had a horrified expression.

"Our cabin excels in healing. We take care of you before you know it" Will grinned at the boy.

 _ **Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins. "I've got training to do, " Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall. "**_

 _ **"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets. "**_

 _ **"Whatever. "**_

 _ **"It wasn't my fault. "**_

"Uh it kinda was" Nico pointed out.

"No it wasn't" Percy huffed.

"You made the water do it all. Even if you didn't realize it" Bianca said in support of her brother.

Percy huffed and looked away, he could argue it if she said it like that.

 _ **She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.**_

"One with the plumbing" Hermes and Apollo roared with laughter, the demigods joining them, much to Percy's embarrassment. Even the ocean rulers had a small smile on their face.

 _ **"You need to talk to the Oracle, " Annabeth said.**_

 _ **"Who?"**_

 _ **"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron. "**_

Apollo sighed at the mention of his Oracle. Once a beautiful woman she was now reduced to a mere husk of a once human, unable to change vessels. He never got to know why this had happened.

Hades though scowled deeply. She was the reason the Di Angelo children lost their mother. It was hers and Zeus' fault.

 _ **I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once. I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.**_

Amphitrite huffed. Young as they may be, they shouldn't be that friendly.

 _ **I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.**_

 _ **"Don't encourage them, " Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts. "**_

"They are!?" Leo said with a gaping mouth. The campers all nodded and a smile crept on his face, much to the ire of Piper.

 _ **"Naiads, " I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now. "**_

"That's all it took" Poseidon chuckled. He had decided to enjoy the little moments, try to let it balance things out for him.

 _ **Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us. "**_

 _ **"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"**_

"I take offense to that" Connor spoke out.

"You're the last person that should be offended" Katie grumbled, smacking the boy with a cushion.

 _ **"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human. "**_

 _ **"Half-human and half-what?"**_

 _ **"I think you know. "**_

 _ **I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.**_

 _ **"God, " I said. "Half-god. "**_

"So you did know!" Leo gasped dramatically.

"It less of him knowing and more of a gut feeling. Something he would understand better than anything else" Annabeth explained, adding a bit of a smirk to the last part.

Percy nodded his head before the last part truly struck him. At which he glared at the girl.

 _ **Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians. "**_

 _ **"That's ... Crazy. "**_

 _ **"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"**_

"You know" Ares leaned forward. "Mouthing around like that gets you killed" he said with a sweet smile.

A smile that sent a shiver down Annabeth's spine and earned him a glare from Athena.

 _ **"But those are just-" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-gods-"**_

 _ **"Demigods, " Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods. "**_

 _ **"Then who's your dad?"**_

 _ **Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.**_

Annabeth in the room had the exact same reaction, except she was gripping her thigh.

 _ **"My dad is a professor at West Point, " she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history. "**_

Athena frowned slightly. She hadn't checked in with Annabeth much growing up. SO why she would run away from home like that and never once think back was a mystery to her.

 _ **"He's human. "**_

 _ **"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"**_

"In his defense, you did mention only the gods. Not the goddesses" Thalia pointed out.

Annabeth just huffed, not even gracing the son of Poseidon with an apology.

 _ **"Who's your mom, then?"**_

 _ **"Cabin six. "**_

"He would know that" the younger Stoll began.

"If he had seen the film" the elder Stoll finished.

"not my fault he didn't see" Annabeth mumbled under her breath.

 _ **"Meaning?"**_

 _ **Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle. "**_

 _ **Okay, I thought. Why not?**_

 _ **"And my dad?"**_

 _ **"Undetermined, " Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows. "**_

 _ **"Except my mother. She knew. "**_

"Did she?" Percy looked to his father who nodded.

The other demigods looked at the lord of the seas in shock. None of them had thought a god would reveal himself like that.

 _ **"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities. "**_

 _ **"My dad would have. He loved her. "**_

Poseidon shifted slightly as Amphitrite gave him a cold sighted eyebrow raise. Neither though spoke.

 _ **Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens. "You mean sometimes it doesn't?" Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us. "**_

"Of course we care!" Hermes said immediately.

"It doesn't look it" Travis stated and all gods turned to him.

"Half of our cabin is filled up with kids that aren't dad's" Connor pointed out.

"Some of them have been waiting for years" Katie added.

"Almost all of them have lost hope" Will muttered under his breath, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

The gods were now in slight shock. It all made sense to them but it still stung them. They were all being negligent and their kids were suffering from it. They had thought that simply being in camp would be enough and that once they proved themselves, they would be claimed. It was a reward.

"It shouldn't have to be a reward. A parent's love should be unconditional" Hestia said harshly, her voice having a slight tremble. She knew exactly what her family was thinking and knew this would open their eyes.

She saw a few of the gods understand it. But there were still a few who didn't show much of a care. This made the goddess both angry and disappointed.

 _ **I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.**_

All of the gods shuffled. Being compared to mortals was…humbling to say the least.

 _ **"So I'm stuck here, " I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"**_

 _ **"It depends, " Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force.**_

"Ares is right. Mind that tongue girl" Demeter growled slightly. How dare this girl think of her being of any lesser of a pedigree than the other gods.

Athena sighed and rubbed her temple. She needed to have words with her daughter about choosing her words wisely.

 _ **The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off.**_

"That sounds rough" Leo muttered slightly.

"Understatement" Frank sighed. At least camp Jupiter was safer. Comparatively speaking.

 _ **A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that. "**_

 _ **"So monsters can't get in here?"**_

 _ **Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're inten-tionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside. "**_

 _ **"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"**_

 _ **"Practice fights. Practical jokes. "**_

"No" Katie said immediately seeing the look on the Stoll's face.

 _ **"Practical jokes?"**_

 _ **"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm. "**_

 _ **"So ... You're a year-rounder?"**_

 _ **Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of differ-ent colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.**_

Annabeth fiddled with the ring around her neck.

 _ **"I've been here since I was seven, " she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college. "**_

 _ **"Why did you come so young?"**_

 _ **She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business. "**_

 _ **"Oh. " I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"**_

 _ **"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ... "**_

 _ **"Unless?"**_

 _ **"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time ... "**_

Hermes sighed. He had hoped that giving Luke a quest, an easy one that is, would both sate his thirst for a quest and make it so his fate didn't catch up to him. But sadly it had the opposite effect.

 _ **Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.**_

 _ **"Back in the sick room, " I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff-"**_

 _ **"Ambrosia. "**_

 _ **"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice. "**_

 _ **Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know some-thing?"**_

 _ **"Well... No. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"**_

Grover shifted in his seat slightly. He knew exactly what that was. And from the looks of things, Zeus had not found out yet.

 _ **She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal. "**_

 _ **"You've been to Olympus?"**_

 _ **"Some of us year rounders, Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council. "**_

 _ **"But... How did you get there?"**_

 _ **"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor. " She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"**_

 _ **"Oh, sure. " As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.**_

"Maybe if you did, I would have figured it out" Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"I'm sorry?" Percy said, entirely unsure if he should be or not.

 _ **"Right after we visited, " Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping ... I mean- Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something. "**_

"Aww little Anny just wants to run free" Thalia teased, earning her a slam on the shoulder.

 _ **I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions. "I've got to get a quest, " Annabeth muttered to her-self. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem ... "**_

"It's not yours to be told Abadon" Dionysus drawled.

"Did he just call me a demon?" Annabeth whispered.

"I think he did" Thalia nodded.

 _ **I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.**_

"I probably was" Annabeth nodded.

 _ **Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.**_

"Yep" Apollo, Hermes and the Stolls nodded in unison.

 _ **Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn. The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact. "Found you a sleeping bag, " he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store. " I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.**_

"Probably not. It's a Hermes trait" Connor boasted.

"Usually people wouldn't be happy with that" Artemis sighed seeing the smile of pride on Hermes.

 _ **I said, "Thanks. "**_

 _ **"No prob. " Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"**_

 _ **"I don't belong here, " I said. "I don't even believe in gods. "**_

 _ **"Yeah, " he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier. "**_

Hermed sighed sadly. If he had stayed by Luke, maybe he would think different. But he was doing it for his own good.

 _ **The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.**_

 _ **"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.**_

 _ **He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes. "**_

 _ **"The wing-footed messenger guy. "**_

"Gee thanks kid" Hermes deadpanned.

 _ **"That's him. Messengers. Medicine.**_

"People always confuse medicine as being yours" Apollo said with a sigh.

"Must be because of this" Hermes raised his staff.

 _ **Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors. " I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody.**_

"I'm sure he didn't" Thalia reassured the boy with a friendly smile.

 _ **He just had a lot on his mind. "You ever meet your dad?" I asked. "Once. " I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had any-thing to do with how he got his scar.**_

"No!" Hermes said immediately. "Not directly at least" he thought with a sigh.

 _ **Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other. " He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him-even if he was a counselor-should've steered clear of an uncool middle schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.**_

"I showed you around!" Annabeth protested. To which Percy just shrugged.

 _ **I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth ... Twice, she said I might be 'the one. ' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?" Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies. "**_

 _ **"What do you mean?" His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests.**_

"There just hasn't been a prophecy. Nothing to do with Luke" Apollo corrected.

"We know" will said with a smile.

 _ **Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... Somebody special came to the camp. "**_

 _ **"Somebody special?"**_

 _ **"Don't worry about it, kid, " Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinner time. "**_

Annabeth blushed as her friends chuckled.

 _ **The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.**_

"Sea trait" Amphitrite nodded.

 _ **Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!" The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cab-ins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.**_

Artemis smiled softly. She loved how her cabin was designed.

 _ **We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads. At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.**_

"Not fun" Hermes mused, throwing a slight glare to the other gods.

 _ **I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur. Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey- blond hair. Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.**_

"Oh I didn't" Clarisse growled under her breath.

 _ **Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!" Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!" Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want-nonalcoholic, of course. "**_

 _ **I said, "Cherry Coke. "**_

 _ **The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.**_

 _ **Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke. "**_

 _ **The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.**_

 _ **I took a cautious sip. Perfect.**_

 _ **I drank a toast to my mother.**_

Hera smiled softly, much to the shock of many.

 _ **She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday... "Here you go, Percy, " Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket. I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something. "Come on, " Luke told me. As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw-berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell. "**_

 _ **"You're kidding. "**_

 _ **His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.**_

"We thought the same" the Stolls said in unison.

 _ **Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes. "**_

 _ **I was next. I wished I knew what god's name to say. Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.**_

Amphitrite gave her husband a look. If he had brought the child into this world, it would only be right he claim him.

 _ **I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames. When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag. It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.**_

"Hardly" Dionysus snorted.

"Not that there were tries" Aphrodite giggled, throwing a look at Hermes and Apollo.

 _ **When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention. Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels. "**_

 _ **A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table. "Personally, " Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson. " Chiron murmured something. "Er, Percy Jackson, " Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on. " Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing- along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home. Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag. My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.**_

Percy sighed and looked down at his lap. His mom was alive. He was sure of it.

 _ **When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly. That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood. I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.**_

Hera sighed in relief and quickly passed the book to Hermes, like the book was going to burn her.


End file.
